Harry T Wilks Leadership Institute

The Harry T. Wilks Leadership Institute is an endowed institute committed to promoting community-based learning experiences that prepare students to become engaged public leaders and informed global citizens while also enriching and giving back to the communities that surround and support Miami University. By connecting students and communities, in Southwest Ohio and around the world, the Wilks Leadership Institute advances the understanding and practice of the types of engaged leadership necessary for building a vibrant democratic society today and in the future. The Wilks Leadership Institute sponsors a series of curricular and co-curricular civic engagement programs, including courses focused on public engagement and community learning, a high school leadership program, international leadership capacity development, engaged scholarship, and a series of speakers and symposiums promoting leadership for the public good. Through these projects, the Wilks Institute attempts to:

• Deepen student, faculty, and institutional understandings of various approaches to public scholarship and leadership;
• Infuse public engagement and the study of the arts of leadership into the curriculum through the creation of new courses and the re-design of existing courses;
• Build relationships between students and community members, including schools, community organizations, and neighborhood residents with a focus on Southwest Ohio;
• Explore and develop comparative perspectives on leadership through local and international engagement;
• Seamlessly connect student experiences in and out of class in all aspects of our programming; and
• Conduct innovative research and share lessons learned for leadership, civic engagement, educational reform, and institutional change on a national platform.

Our philosophy on public leadership education can be found here: Public and Community-Based Education

Who is Harry T Wilks?