Character, Leadership & Professional Education with former Valencia College President Sanford Shugart
As part of the Virtues & Vocations series Education for Flourishing: Conversations on Character & the Common Good, we are pleased to welcome Sanford “Sandy” Shugart, who served from 2000 to 2021 as the fourth president of Valencia College in greater Orlando, Florida. He is a senior fellow with the Aspen Institute and the author of Leadership in the Crucible of Work: Discovering the Interior Life of an Authentic Leader. Our conversation will consider the broad landscape of higher education — and particularly pre-professional and professional education for flourishing within community colleges — along with issues of leadership and character.
Experience the Event
Monday, December 16, 2024 12:00 pm
As part of the Virtues & Vocations series Education for Flourishing: Conversations on Character & the Common Good, we are pleased to welcome Sanford “Sandy” Shugart, who served from 2000 to 2021 as the fourth president of Valencia College in greater Orlando, Florida. He is a senior fellow with the Aspen Institute and the author of Leadership in the Crucible of Work: Discovering the Interior Life of an Authentic Leader. Our conversation will consider the broad landscape of higher education — and particularly pre-professional and professional education for flourishing within community colleges — along with issues of leadership and character. This event was recorded on December 16, 2024 at 12:00 pm ET. Learn more at the Virtues & Vocations website.
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MoreMeet the Speaker: Sanford Shugart
Sanford “Sandy” Shugart is a senior fellow in the College Excellence Program at the Aspen Institute. He served from 2000 to 2021 as the fourth president of Valencia College in greater Orlando, Florida. As winner of the first Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence, Valencia is one of the most celebrated community colleges in America. Serving some 70,000 students per year, Valencia is known for high rates of graduation, transfer, and job placement and has become a national laboratory for best practices in learning-centered education.
Prior to Valencia, Sandy served as president of North Harris College and as vice president and chief academic officer of the North Carolina Community College System.
He earned his Ph.D. in teaching and learning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In addition to his career in education, Sandy is a published poet and songwriter and author of Leadership in the Crucible of Work: Discovering the Interior Life of an Authentic Leader.
Leadership in the Crucible of Work: Discovering the Interior Life of an Authentic Leader
From the Publisher:
What is the First and Most Important Work of a Leader? (The answer may surprise you)
In Leadership in the Crucible of Work, noted speaker, poet, and college president Dr. Sandy Shugart takes readers on an unforgettable journey to the heart of what it means to become an authentic leader. A leader who understands that work forms each of us more powerfully than we form it. A leader willing to be purified and shaped, like bronze, in the crucible of work. A leader who stands ready to do the first and most important work of a leader the interior work.
In these pages Dr. Shugart has crafted a different kind of leadership guide. Not a how-to book packed with the latest management theories, formulas, or processes, but a thoughtful collection of essays with questions, reflections, and stories on developing the indispensable inner life of a leader.
Valencia College President Sanford ‘Sandy’ Shugart: ‘Dramatic Improvements in the Transfer Ecosystem’ Needed to Help Students Transition from Community Colleges to Universities
Nearly 80% of all community college students say they hope to ultimately earn a bachelor’s degree, but only about 15% are able to successfully transfer to a four-year institution and graduate within six years.
This imbalance is why Sanford “Sandy” Shugart, president of Valencia College in Orlando, Fla., said the system of transferring credits from community colleges to four-year universities must be redesigned during the 2019 Dallas Herring Lecture on Dec. 3 at NC State’s Talley Student Union.
To read this article from ND State University’s College of Education News, please click here.
Good Morning Valencia Podcast - Episode 5: Legacy - Featuring Dr. Sandy Shugart
Legacies are important to leave and who better to discuss this with than Valencia’s President Dr. Sandy Shugart. He is transitioning into retirement but never away from the Valencia family. While he’s leaving, he’s dropping nuggets of wisdom along the way for us to receive. Don’t miss this episode as our hosts Amanda & Timothy discover, not only how to leave a legacy, but how to build on top of another laid before you.
To view this January 13, 2021 conversation, please click here.