Global Seminar
BUAD 389: Leadership Lessons: WWI & WWII
An Experiential Travel Course offered by St. Norbert College & UW-Green Bay
Spring 2018, May-June 2018
Lucy Arendt, Professor, Business, SNC Clifton Ganyard, Associate Professor, Humanities and History, UWGB Käthe Kollwitz, Grieving Parents (1931), German Cemetery, Vladslo, Belgium
Course Description Between 1914 and 1945, a mere 31 years, the world witnessed a period of unprecedented conflict, violence, and inhumanity. Driven by several historical forces – nationalism, imperialism, militarism – combined with remarkable technological development in the 19th century, the violence unleashed in this period against institutions, human beings, and the environment forever altered Europe and the world. While these conflicts were global in scope, they owed their origins to developments in Europe, and significantly, a surprising amount of the conflict and violence occurred over a relatively small geographic region, the so-called Low Lands of Europe: Belgium, the Netherlands, eastern France, and western Germany.
This course will explore these events – and their implications for strategy and leadership – through experiential learning, by actually visiting several of the battlefields and their associated museums, monuments, cemeteries of the First and Second World Wars. The course’s timing in 2018 coincides with the centenary anniversary of the end of WWI – 1918. The itinerary includes visits to Ieper, the Somme, and Verdun, to Normandy and the Ardennes, and to Weimar, Buchenwald, and Berlin. While the course will address the obvious aspects of strategy and well-known leaders such as Adolf Hitler and Woodrow Wilson, it will also draw out lessons learned from everyday people – soldiers, business leaders, laborers, artists, and more – with particular attention to how we might use the lessons learned to enhance our lives as individuals and members of organizations and communities. While the course will explore strategy and leadership in the context of WWI and WWI, these topics are best understood through a lens of cultural appreciation and understanding of the norms and values of different cultures. As such, this course will include stops to both historical and cultural locations. Participants will also have time to engage individually with the cultures being visited.
Learning Outcomes
1. Students will be knowledgeable about the major historical aspects of WWI and WWII, specific to the Low Lands of Europe. 2. Students will recognize and understand the primary strategic and leadership lessons to be gleaned from studying key individuals, organizations, and communities participating in WWI and WWI. 3. Students will be able to apply the lessons learned to contemporary situations and contexts in organizations and communities. 4. Students will enhance their appreciation and understanding of other cultures from a historical, political, and organizational perspective.
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This course asks participants to consider and confront several questions as they follow the course of conflict and destruction in Belgium, France, and Germany:
1. What was (is) the character of modern, total war? 2. What impact did (does) modern, total war have on institutions, humanity, and the environment? 3. What decisions led to these catastrophes? 4. What characterizes leadership in destitute times? 5. What lessons in leadership can be drawn from peoples’ experiences in WWI and WWI that might be applied contemporary organizations and communities? 6. How might the values and traditions of both SNC and UWGB be used to understand the political and cultural contexts in Europe during WWI and WWII?
Intellectual and Emotional Demands of the Course: Please be advised: This is not a vacation! This is an intensive educational experience. We will visit sites of intense hatred and violence, view artifacts from those sites, and confront remarkable cruelty, inhumanity, and atrocity. Participants should be prepared to deal with such subjects in a manner more immediate and intensive than they would expect from a regular history course or book. Participants are expected to exhibit maturity throughout the course and will be asked to sign a waiver explaining that they understand the nature and content of the course.
Physical Demands of the Course: In order to visit the sites of these events, we will have to do a lot of travelling. Much of this travel will be by foot, and participants can expect to walk an average of 4-5 miles per day. All students are welcome, and reasonable arrangements will be made whenever possible, but participants should be aware that not all sites are easily accessible, which may slow their progress or limit their participation.
Required Reading and Viewing:
Reading:
1. Volker R. Berghahn. (2005). Europe in the Era of Two World Wars: From Militarism and Genocide to Civil Society, 1900-1950. 2. John Antal. (2017). 7 Leadership Lessons of D-Day: Lessons from the Longest Day―June 6, 1944. 3. Wolfgang A. Mack. (2011). Memories and Lessons of my Young Life in Wartime Germany. 4. Other readings as assigned
Viewing: People’s Century (PBS):
Age of Hope, 1900 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYmbyOrM4gs&list=PLuL26fXZ8eTNLLnugg2BTy OZQ7HT-QZk4&index=1
Killing Fields, 1914 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnT_3m01vQQ&list=PLuL26fXZ8eTNLLnugg2BTy OZQ7HT-QZk4&index=2
Lost Peace, 1919 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrlvD7RH8XM&list=PLuL26fXZ8eTNLLnugg2BTy OZQ7HT-QZk4&index=4
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Master Race, 1933 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXci6fcG2Yc&list=PLuL26fXZ8eTNLLnugg2BTyO ZQ7HT-QZk4&index=9
Total War, 1939 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wVRoHKG5UI&index=10&list=PLuL26fXZ8eTN LLnugg2BTyOZQ7HT-QZk4
Assignments There are four components to your grade in this course, as described on the following pages. As you review these components, please keep in mind that due dates are FIRM, and that you’ll need to organize your time.
Evaluation Component Weights Participation 40 points Daily Journal 10 points Synthesis paper 25 points Visual production 25 points
Final grades will be determined as follows: A = 93% and above C = 73% - 77% AB = 88% - 92% CD = 68%-72% B = 83% - 87% D = 60% - 67% BC = 78% - 82% F = 59% and below
Participation. 40 points. Be true ambassadors of the United States to Belgium, France, and Germany. We will discuss in detail how one achieves this. At all times, you will be expected to remember that you are in another country. You should not expect the individuals living there to act like or value the same things as those from the United States do. You will treat these individuals with respect. You will learn the appropriate rules of behavior, and observe those rules. A positive attitude is essential.
Attend all scheduled activities, without exception. We will have a busy schedule, both during the spring semester and while we are traveling. You are expected to be on time for all stated activities. When we have guest speakers or go on site visits, you must be prepared with questions.
Daily Journal. 10 points. You are expected to reflect upon your experiences in Belgium, France, and Germany by writing in a journal every day that we are traveling, including your free days. What should you include in your journal? Well, you might choose to describe what you do during the day, or you might describe your reactions to what you observe during the day, or you might describe how what you are seeing and experiencing is similar to or different than your experiences in the United States. Really, you may write about whatever you want to write about. If you type your Daily Journal, each day’s submission must be at least a half-page, single-spaced. If you handwrite your Daily Journal, each day’s submission must be at least a full page. If your journal is handwritten, you can either submit your original Daily Journal or make a copy to submit. If you do submit the original, rest assured that I will return it to you as I am sure it will be something you will cherish in the future. I will not mark in the journal. If you type your journal, you can submit it electronically as one Word document. You must turn in your journal for review on ___ and again on ___.
Synthesis Paper. Due ___. [Submit to ___.] 25 points. 5-7 typed pages, double-spaced. Adopt an interdisciplinary perspective! Identify and discuss the leadership lessons you have learned in the context of WWI and WWII. Be sure to consider culture, geography, history, politics, and religion as you identify and discuss these lessons. How will you make these lessons actionable?
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Visual Production. Due ___. [Submit to ___.] 25 points. With another student, create a visual production that incorporates your personal photos and videos and that makes clear the lessons in leadership learned in the context of WWI and WWII. Specific attributes to be achieved will be shared at a later date.
Use everything you have studied in the course along with your experiences in Belgium, France, and Germany to complete your Synthesis Paper and Visual Production.
Itinerary
As a 2 + 2 course, we will meet once per week for three hours each week – Tuesdays, from 5-8, during the last seven weeks of the spring semester. For the remainder of the course, we will be in Belgium, France, and Germany. See the draft in-country itinerary for details.
Draft In-Country Itinerary
Day Activity 1 Leave Green Bay 2 Arrive Brussels, BELGIUM; Travel to Ieper, BELGIUM 3 Waterloo (Day Trip): Waterloo Memorial, Wellington Museum, Last Headquarters of Napoleon, Commemorative Monuments 4 Ieper: In Flanders Field Museum, Hill 60, Hill 62, Yorkshire Trench, Klein Zwanhoof, Hooge, Essex Farm/John McCrae Site, Menin Gate/Last Post 5 Ieper Zonnebeke - Paschendaele, Tyne Cot Cemetery, Polygon Wood, Langemark-Poelkapelle, Guynemer Pavilion, Brooding Soldier Monument, Welsh Memorial, Käthe Kollwitz Museum, Vladslo Cemetery, Dodengang, Diksmuide Monument, Pool of Peace (Heuvelland) 6 Somme (Day Trip), FRANCE Thiepval, Vimy 7 Free Day in Bruges 8 Travel to Reims, FRANCE 9 Verdun: Douaumont, Maginot Line-Hackenberg or Ouvrage de La Ferté (Sedan) 10 Travel to Caen, FRANCE 11 Normandy/D-Day Utah, Pointe du Hoc, Omaha 12 Normandy/D-Day Gold, Sword, Juno, Arromanches 13 Normandy/D-Day Caen, Pegasus Bridge 14 Free Day in Caen/Normandy, FRANCE 15 Travel to Bastogne, BELGIUM 16 Bastogne Bastogne War Museum, Bastogne Barracks, 101st Airborne Museum 17 Travel to Weimar, GERMANY 18 Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora 19 Free Day in Weimar 20 Travel to Berlin, GERMANY 21 Berlin: Topography of Terror, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Sachsenhausen, Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand, Haus de Wannsee Konferenz 22 Free Day in Berlin 23 Return to United States
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