News Article

Josh Armstrong, Ph.D., has been named the first full-time director of Gonzaga University’s Comprehensive Leadership Program (CLP). The brainchild of Gonzaga President Rev. Robert J. Spitzer, S.J., the CLP began in 2002 and now serves some100 GU undergraduates.

The vision for CLP is to educate students in the discipline of leadership, and align that knowledge with their academic major, service learning and other student leadership experiences available at Gonzaga. The program provides a formal, for-credit leadership curriculum and valuable leadership experiences for highly qualified undergraduates. Students are chosen for this certificate program in the fall of their freshman year through a competitive application process.

Dr. Josh Armstrong

The CLP operates under the administrative umbrella of Gonzaga’s School of Professional Studies. Vice
President for Administration and Planning Thayne McCulloh and organizational leadership Assistant Professor Joe Albert served as the first co-directors during the first year of the CLP. Albert then directed
the program each of the past four years and developed the framework for twice-yearly leadership retreats.

Mary McFarland, dean of the School of Professional Studies, thanked Albert and McCulloh for their “outstanding leadership” of the program and said she has every confidence that Armstrong will effectively take the program to new heights.

“Dr. Armstrong was selected following a national search. He is mission-centered and understands the excellence of Gonzaga,” McFarland said. “The CLP students are outstanding academically and are integrally involved in service learning and campus leadership opportunities. Through his doctoral dissertation in service learning at Michigan State, Josh is especially prepared to actualize the vision of CLP.”

Armstrong, who served as associate director of residence life at Gonzaga since June 2004, earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology at Whitworth College, a master’s in education at the University of Vermont, and a Ph.D. in education from Michigan State University. Armstrong said he looks forward to the challenge of directing the program.

“Gonzaga has long been known for its excellent academic leadership programs at the graduate level,” Armstrong said. “This opportunity as the first full-time director for the Comprehensive Leadership Program allows us to further develop this curricular and co-curricular leadership program for undergraduate Gonzaga students, as well.”

The CLP seeks to provide students with opportunities to develop and enhance a personal philosophy of leadership that includes understanding of self, others and community within the framework of Gonzaga’s mission-focused values of service, justice, faith, ethics and leadership.

For more information, please contact Josh Armstrong at (509) 323-6493.