Student Leadership Development Through Recreation and Athletics

Book excerpt: Developing college students’ leadership capacity has become an essential outcome in higher education over the past decade. Collegiate recreation and intercollegiate athletics are two unique environments that often integrate leadership development initiatives. This volume explores the developing leadership capacity of students in recreation and athletic settings and includes: a variety of conceptual frameworks, including the Social Change Model of Leadership Development, practical approaches for creating leadership education initiatives, discussions of the difficulties students face transitioning from high school to college, and literature and resources for assessing leadership development occurring in recreation and athletics. This volume provides a great resource for practitioners and educators to positively influence the leadership development of students throughout their time at the university. The Jossey-Bass quarterly report series New Directions for Student Leadership explores leadership concepts and pedagogical topics of interest to high school and college leadership educators. Issues are grounded in scholarship and feature practical applications and best practices in youth and adult leadership education.