Being the first of its kind 25 years ago, our Jepson School of Leadership Studies has an affinity for being a leader. Not one to take a back seat to other institutions, Jepson recently became the first U.S. location to host the prestigious International Studying Leadership Conference, with our faculty leading some of the panel discussions.  

International scholars flocked to campus this week to discuss 2017’s ISLC topic, “Leadership, Dissent, and Disobedience: Leaders and Followers in a Populist Age,” diving into political and social movements from this year and ways in which scholarship itself might be used as a form of civil disobedience.

Sessions featured eight of our own faculty members and additional speakers from across the United States, Sweden, Finland, France and the United Kingdom. Not to mention UR students were able to sit in on the sessions, and 2017 alumna Hayley Gray-Hoehn presented with Jepson professor and conference co-organizer Kristin M.S. Bezio.

“This conference attracts participants from different disciplines and industries around the globe,” Bezio said. “As it is the 25th anniversary of the Jepson School, we thought it would be fitting to be the first American institution to host the ISLC.”

For the past 15 years, the conference has toured the world to foster a rigorous exchange of new, relevant and scholarly ideas — from its roots at Oxford University to the University of Edinburgh in Scotland just last year.

As we prepare to graduate our next class of leaders in the spring, we know the Jepson School has exposed them to renowned thought leaders and prepared them to thoughtfully consider global issues. We look forward to seeing them becoming “firsts” in their fields, too.