In 2022, with Dr. Bucher’s leadership, Dominican launched a Master of Arts in Trauma-Informed Leadership. This was the first graduate level degree in the world that paired graduate level training in trauma-informed care with graduate level training in management and leadership. Utilizing Dominican faculty with expertise in these areas, along with strategic partnerships with the National Organization of Victim Assistance and the U.S. Department of Justice, the program provides a high level of preparation for leaders across industries and professions to lead with trauma-informed tools and to develop trauma-informed workplaces.

The program has a rippling impact, starting with individual students and extending into their workplaces, and further into their communities. Our students represent a diverse range of professions, including health care (hospital administrators and nurses), law and criminal justices (police officers, lawyers, and correctional officers), education (teachers and administrators, higher education faculty and staff), social services (working in the areas of domestic violence, sexual violence, homelessness, food insecurity, immigrant and refugee, community development, social work), military, faith-based organizations, information technology and other corporate work, and more. The diversity of where our students are coming from, and more importantly where they are taking their knowledge and skills back to, shows the impact of our program.

In addition to our students helping their clients and colleagues navigate their trauma while working, the students themselves have spoken to the profound impact the program has had on their ability to deal with their own trauma.

In leading disruption/innovation, I have learned the value of critical thinking – specifically one of the first stages of critical thinking, questioning. Asking “why” or “why not” when considering new initiatives or reviewing existing practice is key in finding an opportunity. Additionally there has to be an openness to responding to whatever the answer is to the “why” or “why not” question. This openness often requires boldness – a willingness to shift.

In higher education, a leader can help others through this shift with three key commitments. The first is an alignment with mission. Too often people view a historical or current manifestation of mission as the mission. To innovate and disrupt to create new manifestations, you need to maintain alignment to mission. Second, a leader needs to provide optimism. Disruption is naturally and necessarily uncomfortable, maintaining optimism will help others come along in the work. Finally, you need to provide efficacy, a sense of control for colleagues. Again, innovation is inherently unsettling, empowering people to have a role in the innovation and change both ensures buy-in, but also provides space for meaningful contributions.

On a more practical level, to create a culture of innovation you need to create a culture of resourced and valued innovation. Ideating for the sake of ideating does not yield substantive outcomes, and creating pressures for innovation where ideas and work are not valued or resourced will lead to burn-out and disconnect.

We are excited to continue our work in creating access to meaningful credentials. Our next effort is a PhD in Applied Social Justice. This program seeks to prepare leaders to do impactful work in the area of social justice, but the degree itself is attempting justice work. Meaning, we have designed the degree to disrupt the normal pathway to doctoral education. Historically, the costs and time-commitment, as well as the admissions criteria have been obstacles that prevent access to the PhD credential. We have intentionally designed the program to provide the same high rigor of doctoral research and learning, but through different pathways to include admission criteria, modality, and the parameters for dissertation work. Essentially we are connecting people to doctoral education by disrupting the doctoral pathway, and in doing so we are doing justice work while preparing experts to do justice work in their fields.

We will also continue our global engagement. We will host multiple international Think-Tanks starting in the Summer of 2023, we will provide in-country programming in multiple locations, and we will continue with our faculty and student exchanges and collaborations.

Finally, we will launch our community-based and neighborhood-informed hub for programming in 2024. This unique and innovative model involves engaging the particular neighborhood in identifying program needs, tailoring the design of programs for those needs, and working with community-based organizations to provide access to credentials while supporting workforce development.