Dr. Tara Widner (she/her/hers)

Dr. Tara L. Widner is the Director of Leadership Studies Programs at Chapman University and an Associate Professor working both masters and undergraduate students. Previously she was the Interim Director and Associate Teaching Professor for the Leadership Studies Program at Iowa State for 7 years, where she taught many courses including Leadership Styles and Strategies in a Diverse Society, Cultural Competence and Global Leadership, Women, Gender and Leadership, Leadership and Group Development, and the Leadership Studies Capstone. She also served as the Director of the Global Leadership Study Abroad and the Vermeer International Leadership Program.

Tara is a Certified Leadership Coach, a certified Strengths Facilitator, and a certified facilitator of the Intercultural Development Inventory. She currently acts as an IDI Coach with CultureAll, a Des Moines non-profit that works to make organizations more inclusive.  She has also helped facilitate the Leadership Can Be Taught Symposium and has been involved with the International Leadership Association (ILA) for over 15 years. Dr. Widner was elected to serve as the Chair of the Leadership Education MIG of ILA for 2018-2020.

Widner's research interests include global leadership, international education, intentional emergence, higher education, cultural competency, study abroad, problem-based learning and effective teaching methods. Her doctoral dissertation, “Curricular Instruction of Global Leadership at Colleges and Universities in The United States,” examined how undergraduate leadership programs were teaching global leadership, which methods had proved effective through assessment, and created a model for teaching global leadership. Widner has several publications in the works and has presented on various topics at national and international conferences including Compassionate Noticing and Intentionally Emergent Teaching, Promising Sustainable Development Goals Classroom Practices, Teaching Global Leadership Effectiveness, Case in Point Teaching, Coupling Leadership Education with Social Entrepreneurship, Effective Capstone Experiences for Leadership Education, and Teaching Global Leadership Through Study Abroad.