The next generation of organizational leaders are represented in this compilation. The course pertaining to this book is Group Leadership: Small Groups, Teams, and High-Performance Teams (COM 560). This is a master's seminar from the Communication Studies Department of the College of Communication and Information Sciences at The University of Alabama (UA). As a premier college for communication studies, among other fields within the broader discipline of communication, there is heavy emphasis on experiential learning and engagement for courses in both the undergraduate and graduate level. The course was taught and overseen by UA alumnus, Dr. Brandon Chicotsky, who now serves on the business faculty at Johns Hopkins University.
This master's seminar was offered in an asynchronistic format, guided by a schedule of readings, online weekly engagements, collaborate projects, and deep-dives into case studies, which involved in-person visits to various organizations from the students enrolled in the course. The course assignments maximized practical application for the business marketplace. As with many master's seminars, the enrollment was limited to fewer than ten highly-engaged, intelligent, and ambitious students, all of whom demonstrated significant growth.
The book includes student commentary, discourse, inquiry, exploration, reflection, and deliberation. This rich content was collected and curated from an engagement software called Packback (visit Packback.co/questions to learn more). Content in this book is derived from Packback's online curiosity stream, which is a platform where students and professors ask questions, post responses, and engage in course-related dialogue. The platform elevated student discourse, generated new revelations pertaining to the course topics, and showcased the next generation's intellectual curiosity regarding group leadership in various contexts. Readers of this book will be edified, inspired, and motivated to explore the many applications of communication studies.
