Interdisciplinary course explores leadership through art, classics and community

When Tulane University faculty members Ambika Prasad and Mallory Monaco Caterine set out to design a first-year undergraduate course on leadership, they knew they wanted students to look beyond traditional leadership theories and personality assessments. 

The result was The Artful Leader, an interdisciplinary course that brings together classical texts, visual arts and community engagement to help students explore what leadership looks like across cultures, historical periods and social contexts.  

The Tulane Interdisciplinary Experience Seminar (TIDES) course is now attracting international attention. Prasad, professor of practice in the Business & Leadership Studies (BSLS) program in the School of Professional Advancement (SoPA), and Monaco Caterine, senior professor of practice in the Classical Studies Department in the School of Liberal Arts, will present their findings at the Twenty-First International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences July 15-17 at the University of Galway in Ireland. 

Their presentation, “The Artful Leader: Teaching Leadership Through Art, Classical Texts and Community,” was accepted as part of the conference theme, “Bridging Boundaries: Collaborative Solutions to Complex Social Issues in an Interconnected World.” At the conference, Prasad and Monaco Caterine will discuss how students used classical texts, museum visits and community partnerships to explore leadership from multiple perspectives. They hope the course can serve as a model for interdisciplinary teaching that connects academic learning with civic engagement.  

“The conference theme aligns remarkably well with what we have been trying to accomplish through the course,” said Prasad, who also serves as program director of BSLS. “What has been particularly exciting is watching the collaboration unfold — not only between disciplines, but also between faculty, community partners and students.” 

Supported by a travel grant from Tulane’s Center for Public Service, the presentation examines how students develop civic awareness, critical thinking and leadership skills through a curriculum that includes both creative and community-based experiences. 

Students engage with classical texts that explore questions about power, service and responsibility. They study visual arts to examine how leadership has been portrayed across cultures and throughout history. And they participate in service-learning projects that connect leadership concepts to community needs and challenges.

Monaco Caterine said students examine literary and artistic portrayals of leadership from cultures ranging from Ancient Greece and Rome to 18th-century Japan, the Dutch Renaissance and post-Katrina New Orleans. Readings include Homer's “Iliad” and “Odyssey,” Plutarch's “Life of Alexander,” Ovid's “Metamorphoses” and Xenophon's “Education of Cyrus.” Much of the artwork they study comes from the collections of the New Orleans Museum of Art.

"These perspectives help students identify universal leadership dynamics while building cultural competency," Monaco Caterine said.  

She said New Orleans has proven to be the ideal setting for the course's community engagement component. Students have worked with leaders at such local arts organizations as KIDsmART and the Contemporary Arts Center. During one semester, students supported KIDsmART’s ART JAM festival. In another project, they worked with the Contemporary Arts Center to develop recommendations for attracting more college students from across the New Orleans metro area.

Course experiences also include visits to the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Newcomb Art Museum, where students encounter many of the works and ideas they discuss in class while learning about the history and social impact of artistic movements and institutions. 

Throughout the semester, students connect their classroom learning with their community experiences through a reflection framework called DEAL (Describe, Examine, Articulate Learning). They are asked to connect what they learn from classical authors with what they observe in museums and through community collaborations, often finding parallels between historical ideas about leadership and contemporary challenges. 

“By the end of the semester, students had taken on the roles of learners and experts, leaders and followers, and critics and creators,” Monaco Caterine said. 

The course culminates in creative Leadership Self-Portraits, projects that ask students to reflect on what they have learned and how their understanding of leadership has changed over the semester. 

For Prasad and Monaco Caterine, the success of The Artful Leader demonstrates the power of interdisciplinary teaching to help students understand how leadership works in communities facing real-world challenges.  

“In many ways, it represents interdisciplinary education at its best,” Prasad said.