Completing classes in leadership could help push a resume to the top of a potential employers’ stack.

Iowa State is now offering a minor in Leadership Studies. The program requires 15 credit hours rather than the normal 21 credit hours. 

Students who choose to pursue the minor can also earn a leadership certificate to go along with the degree.

“We involve a lot of business and community leaders in our program,” said Dianne Bystrom, director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center. “We started hearing from them that Iowa State needed to do more in the area of leadership education.”

After hearing from leaders in the community, the Catt Center started putting together a program for leadership studies. The minor was created in response to requests from students.

“The Leadership Studies minor gives students an opportunity to have more accessible credential and strong name recognition with the minor in Leadership Studies,” said Clinton Stephens, lecturer and coordinator of Leadership Studies program.

Alex Salmon graduated from Iowa State in December 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice as well as a leadership certificate. His advisor thought it would help him to hone his public speaking skills and dealing with individuals on a daily basis.

“It teaches you about leadership. Not necessarily about how to talk, but how to be a good leader, how to listen, how to feel, understand individuals get where they’re coming from,” Salmon said.

Salmon, who works in Des Moines for Nationwide Insurance’s security team, said the leadership certificate prepared him for the interview process by helping identify his strengths and weaknesses.

“We find that when students go out for interviews that they are really much more articulate about their leadership capacity and how they show up as leaders in interviewing,” Stephens said, “Employers love seeing that because the recognize these students put a focus on their technical major and on developing their leadership capacity while they are a college student.”

Leadership studies programs are growing quickly across the nation. Stephens said there are about 80 campuses with programs like the one at Iowa State.

“I think ours is unusual in that it has got a buy-in from all of the colleges,” Bystrom said, “Even though it’s headquartered in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences we’ve got students from every single college at Iowa State in the certificate program.”

Dan Voss, a 2013 graduate, was a senator in GSB and an officer in Engineers Without Borders. Voss said he thought the leadership classes would help his other activities.

“Students get better at leading faster when they are both learning leadership in the classroom and practicing it in their campus involvements,” Stephens said.

At first Voss thought to be a leader you had to have an official title, but the certificate changed his perspective. He said that leadership is something that everyone is capable of. 

“Anybody can be a leader, we don’t focus on positional leadership,” Bystrom said, “We try to tell students anybody can be a leader and its how you affect change in an organization.”

Students can go to the Carrie Chapman Catt Center website and find times for information sessions on the minor under Leadership.