There is a need for organizations to focus more on essential leadership skills, including communication and critical thinking.
Prepare for leadership, team collaboration, and innovation in an increasingly diverse and complex world.
This 36 credit hour program is delivered in two formats and can be completed in 24 months:
- Winter/January start - Tuesday evening format that meets once a week
- Summer/ May start - Tuesday evening format that meets once a week
- Fall/September start - Wednesday evening format that meets once a week
Program Benefits
- Daemen’s interdisciplinary curriculum emphasizes team building, effective organizational communication, organizational change, systems thinking, and creative problem-solving.
- Program is designed as a hybrid of face-to-face and virtual learning in a seminar, action-learning model.
- Cohort meets once a week in the evening to accommodate schedules of working professionals.
- Program integrates experiential, interactive, and reflective learning in a collaborative environment where students share personal work experiences, evaluate case studies, and engage in action learning.
- Graduates are empowered as leaders with skills that enable them to skillfully navigate unscripted and unprecedented opportunities and challenges.
- Alumni serve in leadership roles as executives and team leaders in the business, health care, higher education, and social impact sectors.
- Program has helped develop leaders locally and internationally for twenty years.
Daemen’s Center for Interprofessional Learning and Simulation (CILS) provides students experiential learning opportunities to promote best practice and collaboration. This leads to improved health and wellbeing outcomes for individuals, organizations, and communities!
Career Outlook
Graduates possess the capacity to integrate diverse perspectives and needs.
They find success in a variety of leadership positions across industries.
- Executive director
- President or vice president
- Chief operations officer
- Educational administrator
- General manager
- Corporate director
- Senior quality analyst
- Graduate education coordinator
Program Specifics
Specialty Tracks
Specializations allow students to meet their personal and career learning objectives. Leadership and Innovation students customize their research project/thesis and complete the specialization leadership course in one of four specialty tracks:
- Business
- Health Professions
- Higher Education
- Not-for-Profit Organizations
Scholarships may not be combined; students may only receive one scholarship.
Graduate Merit Scholarship
30 percent off the graduate per credit hour tuition rate awarded to accepted students of this program who have earned an undergraduate GPA of 2.7 or above.
Graduate Alumni Scholarship
Additional scholarships may be available for alumni, please contact your admissions counselor for more information.
Americorps Matching Scholarship
Awarded to accepted Leadership and Innovation students who have completed an Americorps service commitment. Daemen College will match the 100 percent of the Segal Americorps Education Award OR provide a 30 percent tuition scholarship discount for Americorps alumni enrolling in our program.
Admission Requirements
- Complete the online application.
- A written statement from the applicant which describes the applicant's interest in the Leadership and Innovation degree and assesses the applicant's strengths as a leader and describes what the applicant hopes to gain from a graduate degree.
- Provide a resume of professional experience.
- Two letters of recommendation from an employer, professional colleague, or major professor which evaluate the applicant's leadership potential and capacity to complete a graduate degree.
- Official transcript(s) from all accredited colleges or universities attended indicating the award of an undergraduate degree (international applicants must submit foreign transcripts in the original language and an English copy).
- Submission of an official TOEFL score by each international applicant who has graduated from a foreign college or university and whose native language is not English.
- Personal interview with program director.
Graduation Requirements
A minimum cumulative grade point average (GPA) of 3.00 must be maintained to remain in good standing. A failed course must be repeated. It may also be necessary to repeat coursework in which a grade below B (3.0) has been earned in order to maintain the 3.0 overall GPA. A student is allowed a maximum of two repeats before being dismissed from the Executive Leadership and Change program.
Application for Degree: All graduate students are required to file an Application for Degree (PDF) form with the Registrar's Office at the onset of the final term of study. The application form is accessible on the Registrar's web page.