School of Education — Leadership Studies — Organization and Leadership

Ellen A. Herda, Ph.D.

Professor, Leadership Studies, Organization and Leadership Program

Dr. Ellen Herda has worked in international development settings in thirty five different countries over the past 25 years. An anthropologist and a management consultant, her primary emphasis has been in socioeconomic development in South East Asia. Her special foci are education, technology and health care. She has been instrumental in setting up computer centers in remote areas providing technical and educational skills to the Hill tribes in Burma, Thailand and Laos. The cornerstone of her teaching curriculum is to know oneself in relationship to the other, historical and narrative identity, and international leadership development.

Education

Ph.D., Anthropology, University of Oregon
Ph.D., Educational Management and Social Policy, University of Oregon
M.A., Sociocultural Anthropology, University of Oregon
M.S., Educational Administration, California State University, Hayward
B.S., French, Manakato State University, Minnesota
B.A., Philosophy, French (minor), University of Minnesota
Peace Corps Training for Liberia, West Africa service, University of New York, Syracuse
French language and literature studies, Sorbonne University, Paris, France

Research Areas

International development in corporate, government and non-government, and education and health settings; communication and organizational change; preparation for higher education research and teaching; socioeconomic policy analysis; anthropological research within the critical hermeneutic tradition.

Teaching
  • Sociocultural Foundations of Organization and Policy
  • Anthropological Research in Education
  • Culture & Work
  • Culture & Law
  • Participatory Hermenutic Research
  • Organization Development & Learning
  • International Adult Learning: Domestic & Transcultural
  • Legitimazation of Power in Societies and Organizations
  • M.A. Field Project
  • Dissertation Proposal Seminar
  • Proposal Development
  • Dissertation Proposal Development
  • Dissertation Research & Writing
Publications

Herda, E. (2010). Narrative matters among the Mlabri: Interpretive anthropology in international development. In B. Treanor & H.I. Venema (Eds.), A Passion for the Possible: Thinking with Paul Ricoeur (pp. 129-146). New York: Fordham University Press.

Herda, E. (2010). Muslim youth in Kashgar, Xin Jiang: Living life with purpose in communist China. Journal of Sufism/An Inquiry, 15(1), 8-9.

Herda, E. (2009) Islam voices across cultures: Venues for leadership and understanding. Journal of Sufism/An Inquiry, 14(4), 8-9.

Herda, E. A. (2008). Language, Communication and Imagination in the Application of Critical Hermeneutics. Journal of Anui Normal University (Humanities and Social Sciences). Vol. 36, No. 3 (Sum No. 158) May. Pages 284-289.

Herda, E. A. (2007). Identity and Development; Learning, Language and Policy Implications, Introduction to an issue of The Applied Anthropologist, (Guest Editor), Vol. 27, No 1. Pages 4-22.

Herda, E. A. (2007). Beyond Advocacy: Work and Identity among the Mlabri of Northern Thailand. The Applied Anthropologist. Vol. 27, No 1.

Herda, E. A. (2002). Power and place: A hermeneutic orientation in development and education among the Mlabri of Northeast Thailand, in High Plains Applied Anthropology, 1(22), Spring, 101-109.

Herda, E. A. (1999). Research conversations and marrative: A critical hermenuetic orientation in participatory inquiry. Westport Ct/London: Praeger Publishers.