Category: Practice

Liberal Arts and the Jepson Way: Yes, Virginia, leadership can be taught

BY JOANNE B. CIULLA

About 20 years ago, Savannah business leader and University of Richmond alumnus Robert S. Jepson Jr. gave the university $20 million to start a school of leadership studies. I was one of the four faculty recruited to design the school and its curriculum. We briefly grappled with the question “Can leadership be taught?" which is frequently accompanied by the question, “Are leaders born or made?” We came to the conclusion that neither question was particularly useful.

What the first question means is this: If students take a leadership course, will they become leaders? I wish education could offer such guarantees. I’ve been teaching ethics for 34 years. Imagine how wonderful it would be if I could guarantee that every single student I ever taught would be ethical. Do all students who take an art course become artists? No. Often the ones who do become artists have a natural talent, but not always. Some artists are indeed born, but there are also people who become artists because they take a course, develop an interest in it, and work hard to be good at it. Furthermore, even the most naturally talented artists benefit from a class on art. All of this, of course, applies to leadership too.

The second meaning of the question, “Can leadership be taught?” concerns what one teaches in such a course. After all, generals and CEOs know about leadership, but what do college professors know about it? When we designed the Jepson School of Leadership Studies, we had very clear answers to these questions: We teach liberal-arts courses. How could one possibly understand leadership without exploring history, the classics, literature, religion, philosophy, art, political science, psychology, sociology, etc.? The Jepson School faculty and curriculum is about half social science and half humanities. As a philosopher, what I know about leadership is what some of the greatest minds in history have to say about the subject, what my colleagues in psychology know is about empirical studies about leadership and how people think and how groups of people interact. Continue reading Liberal Arts and the Jepson Way: Yes, Virginia, leadership can be taught

Death of the Cul-de-Sac

Virginia's new policy signals enormous leadership challenges and opportunities for suburbia and the American metropolis

BY THAD WILLIAMSON

Cul-de-sacs are the iconic image of American suburbia. For millions of suburbanites, residence on a cul-de-sac street offers both peace and peace of mind. Parents can rest content knowing that cars will not zip through the neighborhood at high speed, and it's easier for residents to identify outsiders €” if they happen into the neighborhood at all.

But cul-de-sacs come at a cost €” a cost Virginia has decided it can no longer pay. This spring, the Commonwealth Transportation Board announced new guidelines as to what kinds of roads will be eligible for state maintenance.

Specifically, beginning July 1, "The developer must build streets that connect with the surrounding transportation network in a manner that enhances the capacity of the overall transportation network and accommodates pedestrians, while also minimizing the environmental impacts of storm water runoff by reducing the street widths and allowing the use of low-impact development techniques."

This means in practice that new cul-de-sac streets that fail to provide multiple connections to other locations (as a traditional urban grid does) will no longer be supported by the government.

The argument against cul-de-sac developments is that they force traffic to collect on over-burdened connecting streets, and that they make biking or walking from place to place nearly impossible, even when destinations are nearby in geographic terms. Studies also indicate that fire services are more expensive in less-connected streets, and that urban grids, because they slow traffic, are actually safer for pedestrians than cul-de-sac-style development, despite what many parents may assume.

Nonetheless, the new rules will not be popular with everyone. Mike Toalson of the Home Builders Association of America was quoted in the Washington Post in March stating that cul-de-sac neighborhoods are safe and that urban grids promote crime, while other cul-de-sac residents praised the quiet in their neighborhoods. Continue reading Death of the Cul-de-Sac

Strategic Leadership and Social Media for Social Good conference set for July 24

A group of communications professionals as well as experts in nonprofits and leadership has designed a conference for community leaders, “Strategic Leadership and Social Media for Social Good,” to be held Friday, July 24 at the University of Richmond.

Keynote speaker Gradon Tripp was involved in the social media scene before the term was widely used. He is the founder of the Boston-based Social Media for Social Change, an organization that focuses on bringing the social media community together to raise awareness for worthy causes.  Other speakers include Dr. Nancy B. Stutts, executive director of The Connect Network; Dean Sandra J. Peart of the Jepson School of Leadership Studies; Jon Newman, partner and co-founder of the Hodges Partnership; Cynthia Price, communications director for the Christian Children’s Fund–which is launching a new brand and a communications structure that relies heavily on new media. A panel of speakers from nonprofits, government and advertising/public relations firms and table discussions around particular topics will round out the session.

It is hosted by the Jepson School and the Communications Department, University of Richmond. 

Due to space limitations, only one reservation per organization, please. No consultants or businesses will be included unless the person is representing a corporate foundation, or is the designated attendee by a nonprofit. A waiting list will be maintained if seats become available. Registration is first-come, first served. Deadline is Friday, July 17 or when the conference reaches capacity. The morning session is free and open. A buffet luncheon with affinity-table discussions on key topics will be held beginning at 12:30 p.m. Cost for the lunch is $18 and payment is required in advance.

To register for conference ONLY

To register for conference and luncheon

For further information: E-mail jepson@richmond.edu or call 804-287-6522.

Follow #sm4sg and @Jepsonschool on Twitter.

A Plea for Balance: As health-care reform advances, it's important to remember which aspects of our current system work

BY SANDRA J. PEART

It's been some time since I lived in Canada. Much of what I know of the health-care system there comes from that experience and the ongoing conversations I have with relatives and friends who are now of an age to place demands on the system. As a graduate student, I needed very little in the way of medical services. Wisdom-teeth extractions weren't covered by the system. I had to have those done at reduced rates by a dental student at the University of Toronto.

In Canada, we revel in the universality of the system. Rightly so: It's wonderful to know that all have access to affordable basic medical services. The simplicity of the system is breathtaking €” especially for one who has for some time had to deal with the American version. I never saw a bill for any service covered by OHIP, the Ontario Health Insurance Plan. Since there is sometimes a misconception about this, I should say as well that I did have some choices for my health: I wasn't forced to take on a specific doctor. Other choices, however, are more circumscribed.

These are, perhaps, the best features of the Canadian system: universal access, simplicity and choice.

They are also its weaknesses. In a system that is increasingly stressed for resources as the population ages, it seems unreasonable to expect that the provinces can continue to offer "free" services to all Canadians irrespective of income or wealth levels. By this I don't mean to suggest that services should be restricted to those who can afford to pay for service. On the contrary, it may make sense for those at the higher end of the income distribution to pay a larger amount for the services they demand. This is what has apparently happened as wealthier Canadians increasingly add private-insurance supplements to the publicly provided plan. As for simplicity and choice, though I enjoyed the lack of medical bills or statements when I lived in Canada, I had no idea what anything cost there. That just wasn't sensible. More than this, some items (my wisdom teeth) are simply off the table, unavailable through the public plan €” as a result of tough choices that OHIP makes for all in order to maintain fiscal viability.

Any system that offers services that are free of monetary payment needs to come up with a rationing scheme. Waiting times might do it: They are longer in the Canadian system than they might otherwise be. But it may be that Canadians would be willing instead to pay money (as opposed to time) for services. Co-payments might help preserve the integrity of the system, and they have the added benefit of making those who use the system think seriously about whether the visit to the doctor is really needed.

It's important to recognize, as well, that extended waiting times and overstressing a system have real consequences. A relative, now deceased, was recently hospitalized for chemotherapy treatments. He suffered a series of strokes while there; no one noticed until it was entirely too late to treat him adequately. Continue reading A Plea for Balance: As health-care reform advances, it's important to remember which aspects of our current system work

Not Many Sip Coffee Alone: Emerging social networks bridge virtual and real civic life

BY SUE ROBINSON

The American Dialect Society names its Word of the Year each January. In the running for 2008 were "shovel-ready," "maverick," "going rogue," "tweet" and "change." No drumroll required: "bailout" won.

For 2009, here's a nomination: "civic engagement."

In academic circles, the term "civic engagement" has been in use at least since scholar Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone" came out in an essay in 1996 and a book in 2000. He told us that society's civic foundation was crumbling because people were disconnected from each other and ignoring communal life. Group social activities (like bowling leagues) were shrinking.  Television and sprawl were eroding our "social capital" – networks of people who do things with and for each other. We were losing trust in government and in each other. We weren't participating (voting, protesting, meeting, conversing). We were not engaged.

Colleges and universities, responsible for studying these trends and for educating the next generation of citizens, offered and continue to offer classes, projects, scholarships, research, offices, even large centers, tied to understanding how citizens connect with activities and to engaging students in civic life. Students learn firsthand about systemic failures and our deepest social problems through volunteering or researching in community settings. Gown went to town.   

Today, 10-plus-years-post-Putnam, the concept of civic engagement has a meme-like quality. (A "meme" is a catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly from person to person via the Internet.) Beyond campuses, in the broader community, on and offline, the concept is taking on all sorts of characteristics.  

Civic engagement can be defined as a suite of activities –volunteering, advocating, researching, voting, organizing your neighborhood to solve an issue of common concern. Fundamentally it is about relationships to ideas, to causes, to government, to society, to others and how we relate to each other and talk with each other. Social networking is the foundation for successful problem-solving. Leaders can emerge as facilitators from networks of people. The grandest idea of democracy is that citizens together will find solutions to our problems – through political processes or through civic action.  

That citizen today may be sitting alone at Panera. But with free Wi-Fi we're really not sipping coffee alone. We're online, with others.

Communal action is finding new effectiveness with online tools. If you're ever signed up for an action alert on a cause you care about, you know how this works (or irritates). Alerts engage you immediately. You fire off an e-mail to your senator or donate money online. On a smaller scale but just as effective, in March, Connect Richmond ( HYPERLINK “http://www.connectrichmond.org” www.connectrichmond.org) launched a new e-mail group for people opposed to proposed new city fees for nonprofits. In short order, the list had 47 members, all of whom had phone numbers and e-mail addresses for Richmond City Council members.

On a national scale, much has been written about the Obama campaign's deft use of social media. Underline "social." The Web site worked because it spoke to the individual and made it easy for the one to align with others. Join, get access, do your part and hook up with more than 1 million more in an online community. Reportedly, the Obama campaign participated in more than 15 online social networks and gleaned 5 million supporters through these tools. On Twitter, "BarackObama" had 112,000 followers. On Facebook, Obama had 3.3 million friends, 500 groups 33 applications. On YouTube, more than 14 million watched the "Yes I Can" video.

So many Web sites make it easy to join or volunteer. National sites such as servicenation.org, bethechange.org, dosomething.org and connectforgood.org encourage activism and refer to opportunities in your ZIP code.  

Social capital development on the Internet via social networking is one of the things people are doing when they are sipping coffee with the laptop or squinting at the Blackberry at Panera. People are joining interest groups on LinkedIn and finding like-minded friends on Facebook. People are tweeting on Twitter –the free micro-blogging platform. Sure, people are following Brad Pitt but they're also following the GIVE Act.  

Scholars are just beginning to study what Facebook means to civic life. They are a fact of life in the 21st century, and they may well be the next-generation bowling leagues. Today's online interactions for social change will never substitute for face-to-face interactions any more than online dating will replace the real thing. But eHarmony and Match.com do bring love and marriage to some seekers, and e-networking can lead to real-life work for good.     

Twitter became an international sensation in February when an e-roots fund drive started in London grew into meet-ups and events in nearly 200 cities involving thousands of attendees. The Twestival became a group of same-time events in the real world that were streamed online and raised $500,000 for charity.     

What is most exciting is that this escalation in engaging activity appears at work in the real world as well. In March in metro Richmond, messages, meetings and information about civic engagement were pervasive.

Leadership Metro Richmond, the region's 29-year-old, 1,600 member community leadership development program, invited its members to a March 31 "Town Hall" to discuss how LMR members can be stronger community assets and connect more closely with one another.  

Two meetings based on a Seattle-based model, Conversations Café, were also set for March. The mission: "To promote community, democracy and wisdom world-wide through generating millions of open, respectful public conversations." These conversational salons were to focus on eliciting individual and small group perspectives on the possibilities for our region.   

The University of Richmond opened UR Downtown, which in part is envisioned as an open meeting space for civic discourse and as a way to link university resources and the knowledge of the academy to serving community needs.   

Sunshine Week, promoting open government, always falls Sunday through Saturday that includes March 16, the birthday of James Madison. The executive director of the Virginia Coalition of Open Government wrote an essay published statewide. Her point was to urge citizens "to ask questions, look at records, attend meetings, inspect budget reports€¦. Always remind yourselves, each other, your elected officials and government employees [that] democracy demands vigilance. It demands stewardship. It demands that we all stay involved."

The Jepson School of Leadership Studies celebrated the 15th year anniversary of its first graduating class using a social online network and a virtual community service project.  Some participants will gather for face-to-face conversations and reflections, all to be Webcast for those who are unable to attend.

The recent big event on this front was The Richmond Times-Dispatch's 23rd Public Square. This community meeting (an exercise in civic engagement) drew 130 people to discuss "How will you help your community in the next 20 years." The words "engage," "engaged" and "civic engagement" came up more than a few times.

Most attendees appeared to be active volunteers or representatives of organizations that depend on volunteers. The big unasked question was: "Is volunteering enough?" Volunteers reduce suffering to be sure. But how can citizens work together to prevent or alleviate the very problems that volunteers address. The most provocative question that was asked that night was this:  If 27.1 percent of people in metro Richmond do volunteer work, what's the other 72.9 percent doing? Are they home alone watching American Idol? How can we get them to meetings like this one? How can we engage them?

I have an answer in a word: "E-vite."    

 A communications professional and former journalist, Sue Robinson is director of community programs at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond. This article was published in Richmond Magazine as part of a series on “Leadership in Action.”  April 2009

Economists must speak up and lead the national dialogue during this time of crisis

 BY SANDRA J. PEART

A "teach-in" is how David Warsh referred to the conference near the end of a session attended by students, university trustees, professors and guests. In that significant moment, Warsh affirmed that the room had a teaching feel to it. Unspoken but significant was the acknowledgment that for too long the discussion among economists has been unhelpful or nonexistent. Indeed, a major rationale for organizing the conference was the glaringly obvious lack of debate among economists before passage of the bailout package last fall.

Indeed, that $700 billion bailout passed with surprising alacrity in the light of the serious difficulties that had become apparent. Too little discussion, public or private, preceded that enormous undertaking. And now the country's politicians have committed to spend an amount that exceeds TARP, again with little national discourse. More than this, as economists ourselves we were struck by just how long our discipline has been, as conference participant James Buchanan put it, "missing in action." Even the election campaign failed to spark substantive discussion of the bailout. Now, we've done it again. We've committed to spending another enormous sum of money with merely a few days of discussion and no substantive national dialogue about the significance of the event or how best to set up rules for spending in the stimulus package.

Though some economists are of course involved at the highest levels of policy making, the rest of the profession has been curiously absent from the discussion. We've seen a number of significant letters and some op-eds published as passage of one bill or another became imminent, but most of the profession remains on the sidelines.

Though we have been educating droves of economics and business majors for decades, we seem to have had little impact on the ability of the American public to understand the causes of the crisis.

Economists have been marginalized in part because we've been portrayed as entirely inept, unable to come to a consensus. But we've failed to educate the media and others that there is in fact a good deal upon which we do agree. On fundamentals, principles, there's less disagreement. Our January conference demonstrated just that. Though we had economists from the political left and right taking part, there was remarkable agreement on fundamentals.

On what did we agree? The current crisis is extraordinary because of the very unusual combination of financial and housing market collapses. Consumption spending, financed by expected increases in housing, has been fueled by unrealistic expectations, and now the price is being paid for the correction of expectations.

In partisan discussions today, people tend to "blame" one group or another for the crisis: Greedy financial tycoons caused it all, or government policies caused it all, the conventional wisdom goes. There is blame to go around, but a more fruitful way to look at the crisis is to forego finger pointing and accept that it's been caused in part by policy failings and in part by the actions of private individuals and organizations. Significantly, the economists who met in January did just that: We avoided partisan blaming and agreed that the crisis is the result of a combination of private and public failings. This came from economists whose political views spanned the spectrum of left to right.

We also agreed that it's unhelpful to pin the cause of the crisis on an increase in greed. People have always been subject to a mix of greed, self-interest and generosity, and that hasn't changed in the past decade. But new financial instruments were developed that were less subject to regulatory oversight than others. The complexity of those instruments made them non-transparent and encouraged buyers to trust the judgment of experts.

We agreed that prices are robust mechanisms to convey information. Not a new point, surely, but it is one that somehow was lost, as models were developed to evaluate the worth of non-traded assets. When we replaced market prices with estimates from models, we added non-transparency to the system.

We agreed on the need for transparency, and that simply calling for it won't ensure we obtain it. Sometimes the incentives are such that people want to hide information. The trick for policy makers is to think about how best to ensure it's not in their interests to do so. It is as true for politicians as it is for ordinary people.

We agreed that expertise is needed as we attempt to move out of the collapse.  Moreover, discussion is needed to help all of us understand that the answer to our problems now can't happen in one sphere (public) or the other (private). Instead, we'll need to see a combination of fixes. Individuals will need to realize that before consumption can happen, the means to consume must be secured. Some of that restraint will eventually also be necessary in the public sphere. Meanwhile, the fix will have to take account of simple but important economic ideas, such as incentives, prices and transparency.

One final theme from the conference was that economists have marginalized themselves. As Dave Colander put it, the profession has increasingly trained up "show dogs" as opposed to "work dogs." The incentives in the profession are such that those who produce research for highly specialized journals are rewarded. Those whose work is grounded in problems of the here and now haven't been so much in demand.

This is why David Warsh said economists could provide a valuable service by holding more public sessions like the forum at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies. "It's easy to imagine economists of all stripes being involved in more discourse with the public," said Warsh, a former Boston Globe reporter whose blog, Economicprincipals.com, covers economic news and trends.

The time is ripe for more "teach-ins."

This essay was published in Richmond Magazine’s series “Leadership in Action” March 2009 .

This winter, 16 eminent economists met at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond to discuss the American financial crisis.  Sandra J. Peart and David M. Levy organized the meeting on  "Leadership in Times of Crisis: Economic Science and the Constitution." (Read more and watch the Webcast of proceedings at http://news.richmond.edu/jepson/features/summit.html )  A theme that emerged is that economists – and experts generally – need to correct the persistent misconceptions of the causes. The conference organizers offer reflections on the meeting and the next steps.   

Behind the Curtain of Leadership

Vision and the role of the adviser in keeping an administration focused on what matters

BY TERRY L. PRICE

Vision has a central place in leadership. Before we are willing to follow a leader, we want to know where we are going. What will things look like when we get there? The "vision thing," as George H.W. Bush called it, matters for us as citizens, and it matters for those who serve as part of a leader's senior staff.

It is little wonder, then, that people who study and practice leadership have been preoccupied with the notion of vision. Whether leaders achieve the ends to which they aspire has a real effect on our lives and well-being. We want to make our schools better, our businesses more prosperous, our neighborhoods safer and our government more efficient.

For those who work closely with a leader, vision drives their behavior in both a practical sense and in a much deeper way. A leader's vision not only structures what they do in their day-to-day lives but also gives them the sense that what they are doing is meaningful. In fact, good leaders rely on their advisors and confidantes to make sure they keep their eye on the big picture and don't become distracted by things that do not matter in the larger scheme of things.

Factors such as partisanship, which should not matter but often do, can also stand in the way of success. So leaders need advisers who can serve as their "eyes," anticipating roadblocks and negotiating rocky political terrain. Because leaders can hardly see everything and everyone around them, those who work closely with leaders must sometimes play a protective role by openly expressing their loyalty and by "watching the back" of the leader.  

But there is another type of vision that is just as critical to good leadership and to what it means to be a good adviser. The best advisers can be trusted to make sure leaders do not lose sight of the means they are using to achieve their ends. Although there are often many ways to get the job done, only some of these ways will be in keeping with the vision the leader is trying to achieve. We expect our leaders to live their values, providing us with a model of their vision. Couple this expectation with the legitimate demand that they comply with rules that apply more generally to others, regardless of how compliance promotes or impedes goal achievement.

The problem, however, is that a leader's sight is normally outward-looking and future-oriented. One result of this outward gaze and preoccupation with outcomes is that they can come to think less about their own actions. This perceptual bias should not be attributed to the weaknesses of particular leaders. As psychologists point out, all of us tend to understand our own behavior as a response to the demands of the situation. But normal biases get accentuated by the realities of leadership in complex environments. Thinking about how the parts fit together in service of goal accomplishment can leave little time for reflection and introspection.

In the worst cases, leaders become so fixated on the value of the goals they are trying to accomplish that they come to believe they are the exception to the rules. Success is so important €” not only to them but also to us €” that they conclude that they are justified in doing what the rest of us would not be justified in doing. Focusing too intently and too persistently on one thing, they miss other things that matter morally. In short, they are blinded by their own vision.

Leadership can also make it difficult for us to see what means our leaders are using to achieve their ends. We have a right to a certain level of transparency from our democratically elected leaders, and the media plays an important role in making sure we get it. But there will always be things that we do not €” and probably should not €” see. Although leadership makes people more accessible and visible in some respects, it can also promote a kind of isolation and invisibility. People do not say it is lonely at the top for nothing.

Fortunately, good leaders are not really alone or completely out of sight. They can rely on the vision of trusted counselors. The advisor sees what citizens often cannot see and what the leader himself sometimes does not see. When leaders show sign of what ethicist Kenneth Goodpaster calls "teleopathy," a kind of goal-induced illness, it is the job of those who work closely with leaders to make a quick diagnosis and to give them an honest assessment of their behavior.

Carrying out this job is not easy. First, it requires that advisers not become blinded by either the leader or the leader's vision. They must have a strong sense of self and the ability to see themselves as separate from the goals of an organization or administration. Second, it demands that advisers take advantage of their privileged access and pay attention not only to the leader's values but also to the leader's actions. To the watchful eye, process matters as much as production. Third, it means that advisers cannot be afraid to tell the leader that he is wrong. We are all wrong at times, and leaders have more opportunities than most for error. Giving this kind of correction may indeed be the most difficult requirement of the three.

The best advisers, however, are up to the challenge.

Terry L. Price is associate dean for academic affairs and associate professor at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond. His most recent book is Leadership Ethics: An Introduction, published by Cambridge University Press. This essay appeared in Richmond Magazine as part of the series “Leadership in Action.”

Want to volunteer together on MLK Day?

Happy New Year, everyone! As you probably know, President-elect Obama has called for a national day of service on Monday, January 19, Martin Luther King day. Is anyone interested in volunteering together? Please email me at mark.p.hickman@gmail.com if you’re interested or have other ideas. I know it’s short notice, but maybe we can coordinate something that day.

Leadership in a Devout and Diverse City

A historic commitment to religious freedom and recent initiatives give Richmond the opportunity to become a vibrant crossroads

BY DOUGLAS A. HICKS

During the presidential campaign, a political commentator referred to Richmond as the 105th largest city in the country, and he did not mean it as a compliment. Richmonders can laugh about that, even as we cite our history and significance far beyond the city's and region's population figures.

On one issue in particular, Richmond stands in elite company. We hold a central place in the history of religious liberty. We have the opportunity to become a national model, a crossroads where people of diverse religious and moral commitments call each other neighbors.

Let me make this abstraction concrete. I am not talking about fostering interreligious dialogues on obscure religious doctrines. (Interfaith dialogue has its place, too.) I am talking about whether someone should lead prayer before local government meetings, and if so, who should be asked to pray and what he or she should say. Chesterfield County, of course, recently made national headlines over this issue.

I am also talking about how easy it is for schoolchildren €” of majority and minority faiths €” to have the opportunity to follow their religious practices at school, like food regulations, religious attire and holy days. Teachers and principals have quietly confronted issues like these across the region.

And I mean zoning issues for religious buildings. Which houses of worship are welcome in which neighborhoods, who decides and what are their reasons? Witness the ongoing case in Henrico County over possible rezoning for a mosque and Islamic community center.

None of these issues is simple in the present moment, and they were not simple when the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was passed here in Richmond €” in the Old Capitol at the corner of 14th and Cary streets. Indeed, Thomas Jefferson, who drafted the statute, called the long struggle over its passage one of his hardest political fights €” and greatest accomplishments.

This law, passed by the General Assembly on Jan. 16, 1786, was one of the best leadership moments in Richmond's history. It is not hyperbole to call the Virginia Statute a major contribution to U.S. government and international human rights.

Enacting religious freedom today requires not another act by state (or federal) officials €” we still have Jefferson's law on the books and, thanks largely to James Madison, freedom of belief, conscience and expression stand at the heart of the First Amendment.

What we need today is everyday leadership by local leaders and residents to live up to these great Virginian and American principles. I suggest that we increasingly envision metropolitan Richmond as a crossroads. This is a familiar image, since our waterways and roads have served for over four centuries to make Richmond a transportation and cultural center.

A crossroads, of course, can be a place through which we merely pass as quickly as possible, doing our deals and moving on to other destinations. The crossroads can also be the place where we do our dirty work, making the interactions there dehumanizing. We need only recall the period when Richmond hosted the largest American slave market to hear that cautionary note. But a crossroads, when it is a welcoming and respectful place for all people, can become a thriving communal center. People meet there, share meals, relax in public areas, and even discuss and debate the issues of the day. Richmond is already, and has even more potential to become, one of the great cultural and religious crossroads in the country.

The political scientist Robert Putnam writes about "social capital" in America €” the norms and networks among people that create trust and a sense of community. Actually, he laments the decline of civic life in the United States even as he offers ways to revitalize it. Putnam describes two different kinds of social capital €” bonding and bridging €” and these have everything in the world to do with local leadership.

Bonding forms of social capital are those connections that draw together people who share some identity or interest in common. In religious terms, we are talking about the congregation or the denomination. I am a Presbyterian, and I enjoy the bonding of the Bon Air Presbyterian Church €” not to mention the church's softball team and a Presbyterian fellowship group. Many or most of you reading this essay are part of bonding communities €” whether they are religious, neighborhood-based, work related, arts- or sports-based, or some other kind.

But, as is attributed to Martin Luther King Jr., the 11 o'clock hour on Sunday may be the most segregated hour in America. Our faith communities, with some notable exceptions, are less diverse than our metro region. If we had only bonding forms of community, we would too easily remain in our enclaves with people like us.

That is why the second form of social capital €” bridging €” is so fundamental for our democratic life. This involves people reaching out beyond our comfort zones and familiar networks to connect with people who are, in at least some way, different from each other. And Richmond has a number of notable groups and networks doing this work of bridge building.

One such initiative in Richmond is called "A More Perfect Union," which brings together residents from local faith communities €” Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Jain, and others €” as well as the University of Richmond, VCU and a number of not-for-profits. Now housed within the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, this initiative has produced two creative media campaigns to promote respect across cultural and faith boundaries.

We should also appreciate other bridge-building organizations in Richmond, such as Richmonders Involved in Strengthening our Communities (RISC), the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities, and Colaborando Juntos (a network of Latino/Hispanic organizations). Each of these groups works with communities of faith, but they are principally focused on civic-social issues like meeting human needs for vulnerable residents, crossing racial and regional divides, and building a healthy metro community.

Richmonders: We should invoke both our historic commitment to religious liberty and our current efforts to build civic bridges when we envision leadership for our region. We have good reason to see ourselves as a potential model for the nation, but this calls us to the hard work of engaging our neighbors at the religious and cultural crossroads that is Richmond.

Douglas A. Hicks is an associate professor in the Jepson School of Leadership Studies and executive director of the Bonner Center for Civic Engagement at the University of Richmond. His new book, With God on All Sides: Leadership in a Devout and Diverse America, is published by Oxford University Press. 

This just in: Charities urged to move quickly to influence Obama

The Cronicle of Philanthropy just posted an article based on a panel discussion held today focused on how to tackle the nation’s social problems.  According to the article: http://philanthropy.com/news/updates/index.php?id=6175

"Nonprofits need to be at the table and they need to be exercising their advocacy muscles," said Shirley Sagawa, a nonprofit-strategy consultant who served in the federal government in positions appointed by both President George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Ms. Sagawa said she hopes the new administration will pledge to pass the Serve America Act, a bill to expand the country's national-service programs and funnel money to innovative charities, within the first 100 days.

The panel, sponsored by the Urban Institute, discussed the post-election pressures that will face nonprofit groups as the country's economic crisis threatens to eat into their revenues while increasing demand for their services.

Read more: http://philanthropy.com/news/updates/index.php?id=6175