The mission of the Organizational and Leadership Psychology Department (OLP) is to have practitioner scholar faculty train a new generation of organizational development interventionists and talent management professionals who are skilled in working across a diverse array of global clients to make organizations not only more effective, but healthier places to be. The vision of the OLP department is to make the opportunity of graduate education (masters and doctorate) accessible to a global and diverse community by utilizing the greatest advances in pedagogy and on-line teaching technology.
I joined William James College to teach and develop the Masters of Organizational Psychology Program at its inception in the Fall of 2008. We graduated our first cohort the Spring of 2009. We began the Leadership Psychology doctoral program in the Fall of 2012. The content for our masters and doctoral level training in organizational and leadership psychologist comes from the collective decades of faculty experience working in client systems as internal and external organizational development practitioners. The content delivered in all our programs is a tightly woven mix of competencies. These competencies combined with significant field placement and practicum experience allow our graduates to become leaders of positive change, effective interventionists at the individual, team and systems level, and effective talent management practitioners.
This applied focus ensures that we are not teaching theory for theory sake. A comment I hear frequently from our students is, “I learned this last night and was able to apply it today at work.” This is the point – to teach what matters and is relevant so that our graduates go away with not only a full tool kit but mental models and ways of thinking and being that allow them to apply their tools to a diverse set of organizational circumstances. Last, know that by joining our programs you are joining a community. We actively maintain relationships with our alumni who have formed the Alumni Alliance in 2010. This active network of internal and external practitioners meets a few times a year and provides opportunities for continued professional development.
I am delighted you are considering joining our community.
Please contact me if you have questions.
Very best,
Kathryn Stanley
Chair, Organizational and Leadership Psychology Department