By: Charmion Davis

Graduate students and mid-career professionals from across the country can apply for the first time to develop leadership skills with the Presidential Leadership Scholars Program.

“The real goal of the program is to develop solution-oriented leaders who use presidencies as the case study,” said Holly Kuzmich, senior vice president of the Bush Institute.

She speaks of the Presidential Leadership Scholars Program, a free six-month leadership training course that teaches practical styled problem-solving for real
world application.

The program incorporates two of the U.S.’s most active presidents, President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush, to help assist the scholars with examples of how leadership plays a role in real-life crises.

The program draws from the resources of four different presidential centers – The Clinton Foundation in Little Rock, Arkansas, The Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation in Austin, George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas and George H.W. Bush Presidential Library Foundation in College Station, Texas. The program uses real examples from all administrations to make up the curriculum for the program, and each will be presented at their specified location in support of an overall theme according to Kuzmich.

At the George W. Bush Presidential Center the theme is decision making, at The Clinton Foundation its focus is visual and communication, The Lyndon B. Johnson Foundation and Library uses precision and influence as a theme and George H.W. Bush Library emphasizes coalition building. The scholars will visit one of the presidential centers per weekend to discuss and work on case studies and projects associated with the theme of that center.

The program is designed to allow the scholars maintenance of their jobs by pushing all curriculums to weekends.

The only requirements is that the applicant must have around 10 years of experience in their professional career and want to gain leadership skills to apply to that career, however, not just in the fields of politics. The Presidential Leadership Scholars Program does not exclusively focus on political majors or those who work in the political field, but is open to all employees from any career background.

“We didn’t want to segregate it to just trying to say we need political leaders,” Kuzmich said. “We need leaders across the spectrum if we are really going to advance our country.”

The application will remain open until Oct. 27, 2014. The first group of scholars will be named Dec. 8, 2014 and the program will begin Feb. 20, 2015.

For more information regarding the Presidential Leadership Scholars Program visit www.presidentialleadershipscholars.org.