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Foundations for Future Leadership Minor

The world is changing quickly.

The best solutions to our toughest challenges lie in new and novel approaches. At the same time, a just and innovative society demands a new kind of leader. 

Tufts Gordon Institute’s new Foundations for Future Leadership Minor aims to provide graduates with the skills and mindset to lead society through the challenges of tomorrow. This new minor delivers the relevant, foundational, personal, and professional competencies that students need to be impactful members of society as they launch their careers.

Students who earn the minor will develop a range of essential leadership competencies. Through the Foundations for Future Leadership Minor, you will:

  • Gain the mindset and skillset needed to meet the challenges facing tomorrow's aspiring leaders
  • Make effective plans for personal and professional finance aligned to life stages and informed by best practice in financial literacy
  • Apply effective written and oral communications skills throughout the span of a personal and professional life
  • Integrate a career focus by planning a career pathway aligned with personal and professional goals
  • Build the appropriate mindset and skillset to equip you for a life with purpose
  • Develop essential marketing skills to deliver personal and professional success
George Blount, Lecturer, Tufts Gordon Institute

Our aim is to help the next generation of leaders, whatever their chosen career path, to develop the skills and mindset to make a real difference in the world and take from their Tufts education a sense of profound purpose to use their leadership skills for the benefit of all of society.

George Blount, Lecturer, Mastering Money, Tufts Gordon Institute

Earning the Minor: 3 Core Courses + 1 Elective

To receive this minor, students need to complete three half-semester core courses (2 credits each) and one elective course from Tufts Gordon Institute’s portfolio of courses. The total credits required for completion of this minor is a minimum of 8 credits. This minor is open to students in the School of Engineering (SOE).

Students in the School of Arts & Sciences (A&S) may take courses offered as part of the Foundations for Future Leadership Minor. However, the minor will not be reflected on A&S student transcripts, which require at least 15 credits for academic minors. A&S students may use the coursework as a pathway to earn the Entrepreneurship Minor, or Engineering Management Minor, both of which meet A&S guidelines for earning a minor.

Half-Semester Core Courses

  • This course is more than just Leadership 101! While it covers an introduction to the theory and practice of leadership, the course will also have a very practical focus in terms of developing the skills and application of leadership across a range of contexts — including startups, corporates, nonprofits, and more.

    The course will initially focus on developing the self-awareness needed to prepare you for your first leadership position in your chosen field. Then, the course will explore leadership skills and provide you with the mindset and skillset, together with a toolkit, to get you started as a new and aspiring leader.

  • This course will introduce you to sound money management and the essential skills of personal finance, whether in basic household budgeting or more advanced principles of investment, together with the skills for basic business finances.

    The course will also cover the financial requirements across the important stages of life, from juggling student finances, financing your first home, and then planning for a family and investing for a comfortable retirement.

    Students will also be introduced to basic business finances, such as budgeting, financial statements, and taxation. The aim will be to create greater financial awareness, making you a more effective money manager of your personal and business finances, as well as giving you the vocabulary and frameworks to understand the daily business world (e.g., such as being able to read and understand the New York Times or Wall Street Journal business articles) and its impact on society.

  • This course will develop effective communication skills across a range of personal and professional scenarios. The course will also consider interpersonal communication and study best practices in both verbal and non-verbal communications.

    You will study networking and other skills in the workplace — all while enhancing your written communication skills, whether that's in developing formal reports, writing emails, or using social media.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • The Foundations for Future Leadership Minor is an 8-credit minor offered from the Tufts Gordon Institute available starting Fall 2022. The minor is designated by a new course number prefix of “TGI." The minor consists of 3 half-semester core courses (2 credits each), and at least one elective course chosen by the student from the portfolio of courses offered by TGI.

  • It is for sophomores and upper-class undergraduate students from the School of Arts and Sciences, and the School of Engineering. This minor is for students seeking to gain foundational skills and competency related to personal and professional leadership. The courses that comprise this minor can also be taken by undergraduate or graduate students individually or as a bespoke collection to achieve a specialization in leadership. Graduate students from A&S, SOE, Fletcher, Friedman, TUSM, TUSDM, Cummings, SMFA, or across the university make look to these courses for this opportunity. 

     

  • The minor serves not only as a foundational part of every student’s Tufts education, but also as a gateway to additional studies in leadership, innovation, management, and entrepreneurship, providing the opportunity to give Tufts students the skills and mindset to become transformative leaders with heart. To complement the rigorous academic education provided by the multiple schools across Tufts University, the minor equips students with relevant, foundational personal and professional competencies to be impactful members of society as they embark upon their personal and professional journeys.

  • The minor consists of 3 half semester core courses (2 credits each), and at least one  elective course chosen by the student from the portfolio of courses offered by TGI. 
    The core courses include:
    •    TGI-110: Preparing New and Aspiring Leaders (2 SHU)
    •    TGI-111: Mastering Money: Developing Financial Literacy (2 SHU)
    •    TGI-112: Communications Skills for Personal and Professional Life (2 SHU)
    The elective courses available in the TGI portfolio include both new and existing courses in the Entrepreneurship (ENT) and Engineering Management (EM) minor programs.

  • To make the courses easy to fit into students’ schedules, the core courses are offered as half semester courses, A half semester course takes place over either the first half or the second half of the semester in the fall, spring, or summer semesters. Being only 8 credits total, it is very possible to complete this minor in one to two semesters. In the summer semester, all core courses and some elective course options are made available so the entire minor can be completed in one summer. 

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  • Yes, for SOE students, the courses that you take for this minor may count for another minor and/or major without restriction. The Entrepreneurship (ENT) and Engineering Management (EM) minors are particularly well-suited to completing in tandem. All of the core courses for the ENT or EM minors may count towards the elective requirements of the Foundations for Future Leadership (FFL) minor. Likewise, all FFL core courses may count towards the elective requirements of the ENT or EM minors. 

  • Yes, A&S students can take the minor, but because it only requires 8 credits this minor does not meet A&S minor requirements and may not be officially declared by A&S students (including BFA students). Instead, A&S students who want a minor credential should complete the cluster of courses that form the specialization for the Foundations for Future Leadership minor, and then pursue either the Entrepreneurship (ENT) or Engineering Management (EM) minors. A&S students are still welcome to take all the TGI courses even if the minor credential will not appear on their transcript.

  • Yes, you can please find complete details about the transfer credit process in SIS on this Tufts website. During this process, if you request TGI course credit, then you request will be routed to the Undergraduate Transfer of Credit Department Representative listed here for Tufts Gordon Institute. This person determines the acceptability of the course content of your request. It is imperative that you upload a copy of the course syllabus to your request in SIS. If you are accessing the syllabus for your own viewing through the student portal of another university, then the representative will not be able to access the syllabus through the link you use. You will need to copy the syllabus, perhaps to a Google document, and upload the Google document link in SIS. If you wish for request to be considered for equivalency to an existing course, then please indicate this in your SIS request. Please note though that transfer credits are not issued for equivalency with core courses. Typically, transfer credit is only issued for elective course credit. Transfer credit requests are reviewed on a monthly basis. If you do not receive a response to your request in SIS within one month, then you can please reach out to TGIstudent@tufts.edu.

  • Please email TGIstudent@tufts.edu. Thank you!

Minor Declaration and Certification

Students must declare the minor with the Registrar’s office. Please visit the Major and Minor Declaration page to learn more about this process. You can complete this process at any point during your experience with the FFL Minor.

After declaring the minor with Student Services, students must complete the Minor Certification Form below. This can be completed before you have finished all required courses and before you have received final grades. Once the form is approved, we will return a signed copy to the student's email address. Students will then bring the signed form to Student Services before their graduation period's deadline.

If you have any questions about the Engineering Management Minor, please contact Tufts Gordon Institute's Administrative team.