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NSU-Broken Arrow’s DELTA program helps adult learners discover, develop and implement personal leadership skills.
Can leadership be taught? A leadership program at Northeastern State University-Broken Arrow encourages students to make choices, take risks and create a vision of their own development.
DELTA (Diverse Educational Leadership Training Academy), established in 2005, stimulates personal exploration of leadership development and focuses on skills necessary for excellence in leadership. To date, more than 100 students have completed the program. NSU-BA now offers a one-hour credit for the course.
Dr. Melissa Mahan, associate dean of student affairs at NSU-BA, created DELTA because she says she could not find an existing program that met the specific needs of commuter students and adult learners.
Students enroll in DELTA as they would any other class, and most enroll because a friend told them about the program or a faculty member recommended they take it, Mahan says. Mahan has also targeted specific student populations for the program.
She says participating students articulate their core values and develop a mission statement that they will use to further their dreams. They then use these values to live out personal moral courage, a foundational piece, with self-correction and self-management incorporated to form a complete picture, she says.
In addition to moral courage, the program centers its teachings on five core values: discipline, excellence, trustworthiness, ambassadorship and legacy (students’ personal legacy and empowering them to carry on the core values, integrity and diversity that have been handed down from predecessors who invested in the future of the university).
DELTA membership allows students to develop relationships with university administrators, faculty and business leaders, and the program aims to equip students with tools necessary to meet the challenges of employers.
“The benefits from students taking ownership of their own education is huge,” Mahan says. “Faculty and staff have reported that students who have completed the DELTA program are more active in class, have fewer assignments turned in late and are more focused on their education.”
She adds that another benefit is that students have the personal leadership skills needed to compete in a global marketplace.
In 2008, Mahan conducted a study on DELTA. She says that at the time professors knew very little about why the personal-leadership philosophy of DELTA is effective. Through focus group interviews, Mahan says she explored the perceptions of DELTA graduates.
“Many graduates expressed this training increased their self-worth and confidence in their ability to succeed in life challenges,” Mahan says. “Several participants expressed having little confidence before completing the program due to past struggles and failures.”
In 2009 Mahan published the book “The DELTA Model of Personal Leadership: Leadership for Adult Learners,” which she says includes three components: details on the theory behind the program, the perceptions of students who have graduated from the program and the complete study she conducted in 2008.
“DELTA is a tool used to create a personal relationship with yourself,” Mahan says. “I’m thrilled to be part of a program that helps adult learners transform their way of thinking.”
