Issue: Summer 2013 | Posted: June 4, 2013

1050 U.U. Drive

Leadership Academy trains Sumner County leaders of tomorrow

Nicole Stirbens heard about Union University’s Leadership Academy in Hendersonville and became one of about 80 applicants for the program. In her fourth year as assistant principal at Hawkins Middle School, she liked the idea of preparing herself to be a principal at some future time.

But that time arrived more quickly than she expected.

Her promotion to principal came soon after she submitted the Leadership Academy application. Although her promotion and her acceptance into the Leadership Academy are unrelated, Stirbens liked the timing of the two events.

“I wanted to take that next step. I didn’t know that was going to happen at that time,” Stirbens said. “It’s wonderful meeting new people and feeling like I can pick up the phone now and call them, because I’ve had a chance to build a relationship with them here.”

Stirbens’ networking experience is just one example of why Union’s Leadership Academy has been embraced by Sumner County school leaders and Union University’s faculty. The program allows participants to learn about changes and challenges in the field of education and then form discussion groups to examine how those issues are addressed in various school settings.

Plans are underway for a second annual Leadership Academy that will begin during the summer months and conclude by early November. The emphasis is current issues in education such as the new Common Core requirements. In addition to the discussion groups, state education leaders host classroom sessions. Union faculty members make presentations on teaching methods.

There is no cost to the school system. All expenses are paid by Union and corporate sponsors such as Wilson Bank & Trust. Two tracks are provided: one to mentor aspiring leaders and another designed to sharpen and update the skills of current leaders.

“We’ve been able to sit down and look at the challenges we face today, and then to determine how we prepare leaders to overcome those challenges,” said Charles Lea, executive director for Union University’s Hendersonville campus. Lea nurtured the idea for such a program as the university moved from temporary facilities to its new building on Indian Lake Boulevard.

County leaders like the idea of developing talent from within their own walls rather than importing leadership from other places.

“We need to be looking three, four, five years down the road,” said Del Phillips, director of schools for Sumner County. “We think that continuing the academies will give us that opportunity to build a succession plan, to be able to increase the capacity, not only in individual ability, but numbers to fill leadership positions that become vacant.”

Eric Bowman, an eighth grade teacher at T.W. Hunter Middle School in Hendersonville, is pursuing an Ed.S. degree. He says the Leadership Academy helped draw him to graduate study at Union.

“I think what drew me most was the partnership it had between the private university, private companies and businesses,” said Bowman. “It just seemed to pull in multiple stakeholders that sometimes in public education we’re not able to pull all together.”

Bowman can see himself moving out of the classroom and into a leadership role in the next few years. Stirbens made that step quicker than she ever would have predicted.

“That’s why I was glad to be a part of this.”