LDR 101: Leadership Seminar

LDR 101 seminars explore how the liberal arts inform good leadership. They engage every first-year student in the exploration of an interesting topic while providing the intellectual orientation and skills foundational to college learning and effective leadership. All LDR 101 seminars, regardless of topic, share specific learning goals based on the faculty's conviction that all good leaders work well with others, think analytically, and communicate effectively. For these reasons, all LDR 101 seminars place special emphasis on five fundamental intellectual and leadership skills: critical thinking, writing, public speaking, digital literacy, and teamwork. Agnes Scott College defines leadership as the proactive practice of motivating others toward positive change through reflective and critical engagement with one’s community.

Each seminar is designed to help you do the following, both singly and as a member of a team:

Summarize and explain the main ideas of a text, speech, doctrine, principle or belief.
Identify and analyze significant issues, problems, and questions, and evaluate or develop effective responses.
Articulate, compare and judge the strengths and weaknesses of two or more competing arguments about an issue, problem or question, supporting your comparative judgment with appropriate evidence.
Develop, focus and organize ideas concerning a central topic, and create, revise and present these ideas in written, spoken, visual and digital forms using appropriate sources.
Articulate how working toward the outcomes above has informed your understanding of leadership and your capacity to lead.

Leadership Seminar Courses, Fall 2026

Select a course to view the description.

LDR-101 (Meyer-Lee): Leadership and Gender in the Young Adult Fantasy Novel and Film (4.00)

In this seminar, we will critically evaluate the representation of leadership and gender in several young adult fantasy novels and the films based on them. After reading some feminist, gender, and leadership theory, we will examine closely the ways in which these novels and films construct positive and negative models of leadership and of gender, and the ways in which they relate these models to each other. We will assess how much these models do and do not conform to existing norms and how successful they may be at challenging those norms. Examples of possible novels and films include The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone; The Golden Compass; Binti; and The Hunger Games. Students will write reflection papers and analyses of films and novels, and, in teams as the final project, design their own young adult fantasy story, and write, film, and screen a segment of that story.

Taught by Bobby Meyer-Lee.

LDR-101 (Stamant J): Media, Communication, and the Shape of Our World (4.00)

After Johannes Gutenberg “invented” modern printing with movable type in the fifteenth century, it became much easier to disseminate information to large groups of people. Yet, the question remains: how is communication affected by the medium that exists between the speaker and the audience? Was Marshall McLuhan right when he wrote that “the medium is the message”? In this class we will consider how media has attempted to facilitate communication, transmit information, and tell stories, from Gutenberg to the present. We will examine old media and new media alike, including contemporary modes such as digital media, social media, and celebrity media. How does an understanding of, and ability to manipulate, media help leaders to lead? What is the relationship between media and leadership? We will interrogate these questions and this topic from different angles and by looking at various kinds of texts to create a discussion about the importance of media in the past, our present moment, and the future.

Taught by James Stamant.

LDR-101 (Solomon): Close Listening and Popular Music (4.00)

Effective communication is a key component of successful leadership. Skillful communication involves more than writing or speaking clearly and convincingly—it requires listening. This course uses popular music to hone critical listening skills, as students apply research, close listening, and aural analysis to identify the various elements of a song (melody, lyrics, harmony, instrumentation, form) and describe how those elements interact and blend to form meaning.

Taught by Jason Solomon.

LDR-101 (Drescher): German Science Fiction: Analyzing the World and Acting Upon It (4.00)

What leadership qualities will we need in the future? What will guide our decisions about how we live our lives in conditions that we can’t yet foresee? In this course, we will familiarize ourselves with the “remarkable set of tools” (Holland James) that science fiction provides for its readers: to imagine, learn, and strategize about alternative realities. Science fiction prompts us to think through complex systems, test assumptions, connect disciplines, understand the fragility of our world or ecosystem, and, finally, to compare and choose between competing approaches. Science fiction, like leadership, requires us to develop a bird’s-eye view of our world and adapt to rapid change. By reading and viewing selected German science fiction novels and films (in English translation) we will develop intercultural competence and pay particular attention to another culture’s assessment of future problems, its approaches to solutions, and to how its characters embody competing discourses and rationalizations.

Taught by Barbara Drescher.

LDR-101 (Zablocki): Religion and Leadership (4.00)

What answers have the great religious traditions of the world offered to the deep challenges of life, such as: how should we live meaningfully? Why is there evil in the world and what should we do about it? What happens after we die? What ethics should guide our behavior? We will consider the answers that the founding leaders of some of the world’s major religions have offered to these questions. By examining the lives and teachings of figures such as Confucius, the Buddha, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad we will explore the diversity of leadership in the religions of the world. Throughout the course we will seek to compare religions cross-culturally, in order to reach a deeper understanding of how, at their best, religious leaders may motivate their followers to make the world a better place, and how, at its worst, religious leadership may be used to justify acts of great evil.

Taught by Abraham Zablocki.

LDR-101 (Iqbal): Ethical Leadership (4.00)

This course explores leadership models that prioritize ethics, social responsibility, and community impact over profit-driven approaches. Students will engage with diverse leadership frameworks, learning how to balance ethical decision-making with effective leadership. The course includes a practical leadership workshop where students will reflect on their own leadership styles, develop self-awareness, and practice self-care strategies essential for sustainable leadership.

Taught by Roshan Iqbal.

LDR-101 (Gillespie): Democracy and Its Critics in Ancient Greece (4.00)

This seminar will explore leadership through the lens of the people’s use of power in the radical democracy of classical Athens. We will examine the birth of this political institution in the sixth century BCE, its organization, and the early and frequent criticisms made of this bold political experiment. In readings ranging from ancient Greek tragedy to comedy, history, and philosophy, we will interrogate whether democracy is simply ‘mob rule’ by another name, rule by the mediocre, and unstable by nature. Further, for six sessions each student will embody an Athenian democrat in a historical role-playing game in which you and your classmates will debate key issues every democracy must grapple with, such as: Who gets the vote? Who gets social welfare? Do we adopt a policy of free or limited speech? Do we need an aggressive military? Overall, this seminar will have a two-fold purpose: 1) to acquire a working knowledge of the rule of the people in antiquity and 2) to acquire leadership skills crucial in our own modernity through teamwork and individual exercises.

Taught by Maribelisa Gillespie.

LDR-101 (Williams): For Her People: Margaret Walker, Literary Leadership, and the Struggle for Black Liberation (4.00)

Best known for her signature poem “For My People” and for her folk novel Jubilee, Margaret Walker exemplified a model of leadership grounded in intellectual rigor, cultural affirmation, and long-term institutional impact. From her role in the Chicago Black Renaissance to her foundational work in establishing the Institute for the Study of the History, Life, and Culture of Black People at Jackson State University (now the Margaret Walker Center), Walker’s career challenges us to expand our definitions of leadership to include literary activism, educational innovation, and generational mentorship. Through close readings of her poetry, fiction, essays, and archival materials, we will explore the ways in which Walker led through language, vision, and community engagement—offering a compelling model for ethical and inclusive leadership in the arts and education. What can Walker’s life and work teach us about the role of artists and educators in leading movements?

Taught by Seretha Williams.

LDR-101 (Nguyen): How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking for Leadership (4.00)

Leadership is about making calls when you don’t have all the facts. This section will follow Jordan Ellenberg’s How Not to Be Wrong to explore mathematical thinking as a tool for clearer judgment and better leadership. We will look at how leaders weigh evidence, estimate risk, recognize meaningful patterns, and decide what conclusions are actually supported by the information in front of them. Along the way, we will ask questions like: How much should you trust a poll? What does a ranking actually measure? When is a trend real, and when is it noise? How can a statistic be true but still misleading? Students will apply these ideas to examples involving probability, correlation, prediction, fairness, scale, and the use and misuse of data in public life. The goal of the course is to practice a kind of leadership that is curious, careful, and willing to revise its thinking when the world turns out to be more complicated than it first appeared.

Taught by Paul Nguyen.

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