Students as leaders and learners: towards self-authorship and social change on a college campus

In this article, we present a case study of undergraduate students’ experiences in several leadership programmes at Bryn Mawr College. Through a collaborative action research study, we identified three interrelated sets of practices in which student participants engage: discerning differences and bringing those differences into dialogue; revising their sense of themselves and becoming more serious students; and revising leadership relationships and creating community. We offer this study as an illustration of and commentary on Baxter Magolda’s theory of self-authorship and students’ development as leaders for social change – an illustration that highlights the close connection between self-development and leadership development.