Speaker Series: Youth Leadership

Posted by on September 24, 2007

PPAS 2007 Fall Speaker Series

First Speaker: Dr. Max Klau, City Year

TOPIC: Youth Leadership
Mark your calendars: Thursday, September 27, 2007 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM Eastern Time

Dr. Max Klau is the Senior Manager for Leadership Development at City Year. He is helping to design a comprehensive leadership development experience to be rolled out to 1300 corps members across 17 sites in the 2008-09 service year. Dr. Klau received his doctorate in education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2005; the focus of his research was on youth leadership, program analysis, and case study development. He is the lead editor of an issue of the journal New Directions for Youth Development focused on the theory and practice of youth leadership. Dr. Klau has extensive experience as an educator, staff, and evaluator working with service and leadership programs.

TOPIC: Youth Leadership

The youth development movement is an effort shift away from a focus on problems and prevention and towards a focus on strengths and opportunities. Within this framework, youth leadership represents an important frontier of inquiry: it implies an exceptional level of competence and mastery over oneself and an ability to influence others. Despite the fact that there are thousands–perhaps millions–of programs across the country that claim to teach youth leadership, the topic remains largely unexplored and riddled with unexamined assumptions and practices. In my work as both a scholar and practitioner, I am trying to bring new levels of clarity and insight to this subject.

For more information, contact:
Carmen Tedesco
Program Officer
Center for Youth Development
ctedesco@smtp.aed.org