New Director to Help Guide Research for Wagner Leadership Center

By Robert Polner

At NYU Wagner’s Research Center for Leadership in Action (RCLA), leadership is treated as a collective achievement, and the question of how leadership happens is considered in the context of organizations and networks of individuals tackling critical public issues.

With that defining frame in mind, NYU Wagner Dean Ellen Schall and Sonia Ospina, RCLA’s faculty director and former co-director, have hired an executive director to steward the research center: Bethany Godsoe.  A graduate of Wagner’s Master of Public Administration program, Godsoe contributed to RCLA’s early thinking about leadership as an associate director for research and documentation for the Leadership for a Changing World program during the formative phase of RCLA, and remained involved in the development of the center, which was launched in 2003 with support from the Ford Foundation.

 “I’m thrilled to be part of RCLA’s efforts to generate cutting-edge knowledge that advances not only leadership theory and practice but also systems and organizations that are effective, transparent, inclusive and fair,” says Godsoe.

The Research Center for Leadership in Action is concerned with understanding and learning from the complex factors that occur among groups, organizations, and networks of individuals working on public challenges. Through the center, people from multiple sectors and disciplines come together to explore the complexities of their leadership challenges. The center provides practice-grounded interdisciplinary research and an array of programs and projects.

Godsoe comes to RCLA after holding senior administrative positions at Wagner in which she oversaw a major transformation in enrollment and student services. She joined Wagner’s administration as the director of admissions and financial aid in 2002, and she was promoted to assistant dean for enrollment and student services in 2004. She maintains a post as a lecturer at the school.