• Our vision of transforming leadership worldwide led us to found and provide a home for the International Leadership Association (ILA). ILA is a membership organization that hosts an annual conference and provides opportunities for virtual networking and access to a number of publications.


• Our dedication to strengthening and transforming leadership and institutions within the United States is anchored in our Center for Leadership and Organizational Development (CLOE), which offers consulting, training, assessment, and coaching services to governmental, nonprofit, and for-profit mission-driven organizations.


• Our commitment to helping the state of Maryland become a demonstration site for excellence in government and civic life within a pluralistic society is realized in the programming of The Howard Peters Rawlings Center for Public Leadership, which serves state and local elected officials and community leaders as well as University of Maryland undergraduates.

In addition, the Academy serves undergraduate students through its own academic programs and courses and through curricular development and staffing of graduate programs offered by the School of Public Policy. Primary among these are three highly selective programs:

• The College Park Scholars Public Leadership Program, a living-learning program for freshman and sophomore students.


• The Rawlings Undergraduate Fellowship Program, part of the Howard Peters Rawlings Center, for a diverse group of juniors and seniors who have demonstrated leadership ability, and


• The Executive Masters Program in Public Management, designed for midlevel practicing leaders in the public sector.

All of our efforts are rooted in a strong emphasis on quality scholarship. Our senior scholars and fellows do research and publish on a wide variety of leadership topics. Research centers, anchored by core Academy Distinguished Scholars, focus on three scholarly areas of study of special interest to us. Our public events highlight knowledge emerging from research, scholarship, and reflective practice.

• The African American Leadership Center (AALC) focuses on policies and leadership practices of and affecting African Americans, supplementing research studies with technical assistance services to organizations.


• The Center for the Advanced Study of Leadership (CASL) is dedicated to the development of foundational scholarship in leadership studies.


• The Transformational Leadership Center (TLC) explores the psycho-spiritual roots of current problems as well as their solutions in changes of mind, heart, behaviors, and structures. In doing so, it seeks out cutting-edge ideas for addressing the challenges characteristic of today’s complex, interdependent world.


• The UMD Leadership Network encourages scholarly exchange between and among faculty, graduate students, and other researchers at the University of Maryland.