A Comparative Study of Student Leadership Development Programs Used in Two Higher Educational Institutions in the United States and Jamaica, Respectively.

The purpose of this study was to ascertain the existence of student leadership development programs and to explore the similarities and differences in the way students in higher education are recruited and retained into the culture and attitudes of leadership, and how they are afforded meaningful leadership opportunities to practice the skills they have learned, in two separate higher educational institutions. These two institutions were East Tennessee State University, Johnson City campus, Tennessee, and the University of the West Indies, Mona campus, Jamaica, West Indies. I was also concerned with the existing perceptions of leadership and leadership training delivery and how this impacted the attitudes that students experienced in accessing leadership development provisions. The methods and procedures used in gathering data for this study were qualitative and included such ethnographic techniques as interviewing, surveying and a brief content analysis utilizing the communicative documents of both institutions. The population consisted of students, staff and faculty of both universities. The findings demonstrated that student leadership development programs did exist at both institutions, but that the philosophies upon which leadership development was based were culturally different. Also, although the methods of recruitment, retention and leadership practice bore aspects of similarities, in many cases the leadership styles, which facilitated these, were quite different. Of particular importance is the fact, that, in comparison with ETSU, which has a rich national heritage of American leadership development research, the University of the West Indies does not have such a nationally research-rich educational leadership background. This bears great implications for the future of leadership development and the necessity for in-depth research