The Newberry College Graduate Programs’ principal foundations of Critical Thinking, Ethically Adept and Aware, and Agile guide our mission enactment.
Critical Thinking
We live in a world where communication technology and cultural norms are driving people farther away from their own critical thinking capabilities. Easy access to information that sounds credible, AI capabilities that track our own preference biases and slant access to reinforce those very beliefs and the unquestioned use of dramatic emotions to sway public opinion make critical thinking more difficult in this Information Age.
The Newberry College graduate programs recognize these challenges and provide techniques and practices designed to confront personal bias, challenge and validate source information, and foster an analytical approach to decision making that includes sound arguments supported with credible facts and information.
Ethically Adept and Aware
We understand the difference between what is right and what is wrong. Ethical adeptness and awareness imply that faculty and learners can address ethical dilemmas through critical thinking and a moral compass to navigate the tradeoffs between:
- Truth vs Loyalty
- Justice vs Mercy
- Individual vs Community
- Short Term vs Long Term
Leaders who are driving change, while transforming and evolving organizations, are continuously faced with these ethical dilemmas. Newberry’s graduate programs provide critical thinking skills and decision-making constructs that address these tradeoffs, equipping leaders to navigate the toughest decisions in a morally and professionally sound manner.
Agile
The world is unpredictable. Agile organizations respond quickly and effectively to opportunities and threats found in their internal and external environments. Agility requires leaders to maintain constant observation of both internal and external environmental factors, utilize this information to develop and implement rapid and sound organizational adaptations, and to confront and ultimately capitalize on these changes.
Newberry’s graduate programs foster agility though their philosophy that organizational development, like leadership, is a constant process present in all leadership decisions.
Organizational development is organizational evolution.