Among the 45 Kansas State University faculty members that will be granted a sabbatical leave during the 2020-2021 school year is Kerry Priest, associate professor in the Staley School of Leadership Studies.
The purpose of a sabbatical leave is to provide faculty members with the opportunity for scholarly and professional enrichment. Sabbatical leaves allow faculty to pursue advanced study, conduct research studies, engage in scholarly and creative activities, or secure appropriate industrial or professional experience. Once faculty members return from their sabbaticals, they are expected to share the knowledge and experience they gained with their students, colleagues and the K-State community.
The objective of Priest’s one-semester sabbatical leave will be to focus attention and energy into the development of a book proposal on pedagogies of practice for collective leadership development.
In her own words, Priest said:
Leadership activity that makes progress on complex, adaptive challenges requires new learning, recognizing values and loyalties and constructing new ways of being. A primary assumption is that learning and development is not simply an individual exercise, but socially constructed through relationships and communities. While there is emerging literature in the areas of collective relational leadership which call for new forms of inquiry and practice, there are few tangible examples from which to train others.
As a scholar-educator, I am committed to bridging theory and practice. One way to do so is to develop concrete tools and techniques to improve research and teaching practices highlighting the interdependent connections between the self and the groups in making leadership happen.
The Staley School is proud of the recognition our faculty and staff receive for their continued efforts to enrich and improve the diverse and changing world around us through their research.
“This is well-deserved institutional recognition of Kerry’s current and future scholarly contributions and is an important career milestone,” said Mary Hale Tolar, director of the Staley School. “While we will miss her presence in the building next spring semester, she will be advancing scholarship important to the field and critical to our work here.”
