Xavier collaborates with Cincinnati Police on leadership program

The Xavier Leadership Center (XLC) rolled out its new Public Sector Leader Certificate Program this fall, running six weeks from September-October 2013. The program materialized as a result of collaboration between the Cincinnati Police Department (CPD) and the XLC.
 
“Towards the beginning of 2012, Chief Craig [of the Cincinnati Police] asked me to develop leadership training for our police officers, so I immediately contacted Shelly Wallace at the XLC,” says Captain Doug Wiesman, a 23-year veteran of the CPD. “Xavier University, hands down, has the best business and leadership programs in the region. So over the course of the next year, Shelly and I met many times to develop a plan.”
 
While there are a handful of nationally recognized law enforcement leadership programs that CPD officers can attend, Wiesman and Wallace, who is Associate Director of the XLC, worked on creating a local, cost-effective alternative that benefits not only police officers, but also professionals from across the public sector.
 
“After conducting some focus groups and surveys, we discovered that many of the desired topics were already being offered in our established Leadership Foundations Certificate Program,” Wallace says. “So we designed a special day of topics for those in the public sector, combined that with our existing program, and made sure to include participants from the business and public sectors together.”
 
“What I had originally envisioned as a leadership course for law enforcement became something bigger, which I think is fantastic,” Wiesman says. “Our first class was very diverse, and it allowed for a unique interface between public servants and business professionals.”
 
“I very much enjoyed the program; to me, leadership is the cornerstone of firefighting success,” says Ron Wallace, Fire Captain for the Norwood Fire Department. “The Xavier Public Sector Leadership Program provided me with an opportunity to recognize what leadership qualities I already possessed and taught me to build upon those qualities to make me an even more productive leader."
 
After putting one class successfully through the program, the XLC will run the course again in January 2014 and will be starting recruitment in the coming weeks. To learn more, visit the XLC’s website.

By Mike Sarason