An M.S. degree in Leadership Education immerses students in three specific areas:

1. Leadership scholarship: understanding the field of leadership from an evidence-based perspective.
2. Teaching & outreach: developing skills necessary to effectively convey information to others about leadership.
3. Research methods & program evaluation: developing the skills necessary to conduct research or evaluate programs related to leadership.

Through close student-faculty mentoring relationships, the program provides content and experiential activities that support leadership studies, training and development, extension education, postsecondary teaching, and positions in business, government, or the private sector.

• Curriculum Vitae or Resume: Your vitae should include a complete account of your academic and professional history along with your community activities, service, accomplishments, and awards.
• Personal Statement: Describe the following: 1) one to three personal and professional goals or objectives, and how this degree will help you achieve them; 2) how your past experience (work, volunteer, research, etc.) provides you a context for studying in this field; and 3) how your interests align with research, extension, and/or creative activity of each of the faculty you list in the Faculty section.
• Writing Sample is required: Provide a writing sample that demonstrates your scholarly writing ability, for example, a term paper, thesis, or published article.
• Other Upload: (Academic Research Experience Prompt) As part of your application, our faculty would appreciate you sharing any specific experience you have engaging in research. Within the program, you will be engaging in social science research (leadership, education, and communication,) and there are several types of experiences we would encourage you to highlight in this section of the application. Specifically, it would be helpful if you can share any of the following with us:
  • Any specific social science research you've conducted (by yourself or as part of a team, if in a team, please articulate your contributions specifically).
  • Any program/project evaluation experience you have..
  • Quantitative research methods experience.
  • Coursework or training in statistics and/or math.
  • Any project (for class or work) where you engaged in data analysis (either quantitatively or qualitatively)
  • Experience engaging in life sciences (e.g., biology, animal science, plant science) and/or physical sciences (e.g., physics, chemistry) research.
  • Qualitative research methods experience.
  • Experience conducting interviews,
  • Experience coding/analyzing audio, video, or written materials.

It is not expected that you have any and certainly not all of these experiences, but we wanted to provide some examples to help you answer this question.

• Faculty: Review current faculty and their research areas on this page and on ALEC Graduate Faculty. With attention to which faculty are currently accepting new students, identify at least one (max 3) faculty members in this department with whom you would like to work. Also address faculty interest alignment in Personal Statement.
• Letters of Recommendation: It is suggested that one letter speaks to your capacity to be a successful student (e.g. from a faculty member); one letter speaks to your professional capacity (e.g. from a supervisor); the remaining letter can speak to anything you believe makes you an ideal candidate for our program (e.g. commitment to diversity and inclusion, research capacity, teaching and training experience).
• Funding/Assistantship: The department reviews applications on a rolling basis, and to be eligible for an assistantship, you must be admitted to an ALEC graduate program. You can complete the assistantship application prior to being admitted. See ALEC Funding and Assistantships for more information and to complete an assistantship application.

Visit https://alec.unl.edu/home/alec-ms-application-requirements for more information on program-specific application requirements.  

Deadline: Rolling Deadline.