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Publication Date

3-1-2014

Abstract

During a recent visiting professorship at the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA), it became clear that language faculty— both military and civilians— stated that they included leadership while teaching foreign languages and cultures.2 However, many of the same educators could not explicitly spell out their approach to doing so. This gap launched a line of inquiry about the relationship between teaching languages and leadership development. Subsequently, it sparked a grassroots effort by the faculty of the USAFA Department of Foreign Languages (DFF), including the Office of International Programs (DFIP), to form a Faculty Learning Community (FLC) to focus explicitly on the relationship between language learning and leadership development through discussion, reflection, and exploration to advance strategies and develop related resources (see Cox, 2004, and “What is a faculty and professional learning community,” n.d.).3 One of several FLC outcomes is to produce a white paper to share our experience with the greater language profession. The purpose of this white paper is to advocate for the explicit inclusion of leadership development in foreign language learning (all levels/languages), expand the rationale, move toward a definition, and share some foundational examples to help catalyze more dialog, experimentation, and research on the topic.

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