Block, a well-known expert on organizational development, community building and civic engagement, will address the conference live via video. A strong advocate for the concept of “servant leadership,” he is the author of The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods (2010), Community: The Structure of Belonging (2008), The Answer to How Is Yes: Acting on What Matters (2001) and Stewardship: Choosing Service Over Self Interest (1993).

, vice president and dean of graduate studies at 91����Ƶ and one of the primary organizers for the conference, says Block will bring an important perspective as an “outsider” to the church. Smucker says Block’s address will focus on “third-way leadership.”

“We’re struggling as Anabaptists with leadership paradigms and how we make decisions,” Smucker says. “We want to facilitate a conversation about how we go forward and further develop our movement in a way that brings us together.”

The conference will focus on clarifying Anabaptist values related to leadership, examining historical models, critiquing current economic and social systems, and developing applied theories that can be used to build more effective and future-looking organizations.

The planning committee is emphasizing the representation of diverse voices and perspectives, and students from the various Anabaptist-related schools will be sharing during each plenary session.

Other keynote speakers include:

• Bryan Welch, CEO of B The Change Media and founder of Mother Earth News;
• John Sharp, teacher, author, storyteller, and historian;
• Lee Snyder, a former vice president and academic dean who will serve as at 91����Ƶ;
• John Stahl-Wert ’81, recognized expert in leadership and innovation;
• Rachel Waltner Goosen, professor of history at Washburn University;
• ’82, executive director of Lancaster County Conservancy and former CEO of Isaac’s Famous Grilled Sandwiches;
• Gilberto Perez Jr. ’94 , senior director for intercultural development and educational partnerships at Goshen College;
• Jeff Boodie ’07, founder and CEO of JobSnap;
• , associate professor of organizational studies and of 91����Ƶ’s MBA program;
• David Miller, associate professor of missional leadership development at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary;
• Dominique Burgunder-Johnson, Goshen College director of marketing and current collaborative MBA student;
• , professor in 91����Ƶ’s Bible and religion department and former academic dean;
• Rick Castaneda, home/school liaison for Harrisonburg City Public Schools and founder of Men of Character;
• , MA ’07 (conflict transformation), doctoral student at James Madison University and instructor with the Summer Peacebuilding Institute and 91����Ƶ’s business department.

Workshop topics include emergent leadership, leading innovation, people management ethics, developing resilient organizations, and authentic leadership.

The conference grew out of discussions at the (ACRS), a community of Mennonite elders and scholars who meet monthly for fellowship and intellectual engagement at 91����Ƶ. Six years ago, ACRS initiated a biography project on 20th-century Mennonite leader Orie Miller; the result was a published by Herald Press in May 2015.

In the planning and conception process, the group found synergy with conversations happening in the program (a joint project of Bluffton University, Canadian Mennonite University, 91����Ƶ and Goshen College), which Smucker says had recognized a lack of scholarly work around leadership and Anabaptism. A network of partnerships began to grow.

The conference is sponsored by ARCS, 91����Ƶ’s , , (MEDA), and . Co-sponsors include Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Bethel College, Bluffton University, Canadian Mennonite University, Conrad Grebel University College, Goshen College and Hesston College.

“We have never before pulled off a conference of this type with this amount of collaborative engagement,” says Lee M. Yoder, chair of the ACRS steering committee and former vice president and associate professor of education at 91����Ƶ. “It’s the first of its kind.”

Register at .

The one-week residency at Bluffton was only the beginning of a two-year journey for the first students in a new teaming Bluffton with 91����Ƶ and Goshen (Ind.) College. Most of the program will now be taught via interactive videoconferencing, but the brief time together on campus left an impression on members of the first cohort.

In addition to an orientation—including an introduction to videoconferencing—they completed their first class, on “Leadership and Management for the Common Good.” The “common good” concept is the basis of the Collaborative MBA curriculum, with emphasis on six values—spirituality, community, leading as service, justice, sustainability and global citizenship.

Group members also heard , PhD, program director and the vice president and dean of at Eastern Mennonite, outline the philosophy of “leadership for the common good.” It is, he said, “a belief that developing authenticity in people is the way to help them transform their world—that the common good is established each time a person, organization or community reaches beyond individual self-interest for the sake of the greater whole.”

After the residency, “I think I’ll have more courage to speak about my values,” said Freeman Edwards, a cohort member from North Ridgeville, Ohio. Edwards added that he considered other MBA programs but the new collaboration among the three Mennonite institutions seemed “the most ethical.”

For Marsha King, the Collaborative MBA is “a bridge” between her Mennonite background and corporate America, where she works in medical device sales.

King, from Goshen, Indiana, said the residency provided a community experience as a group with “connected values.”

Liz Klassen said she, too, took a sense of community and cohesiveness from the residency as she prepared to return home to Kitchener, Ontario. She had looked at MBA programs that have “the dollar being the bottom line,” but that approach “did not fit, when I’m in a people business,” explained Klassen, executive director of a seniors’ community within , New Hamburg, Ontario.

The diversity of the cohort members’ backgrounds, as well as ages (28-69), was beneficial to the group dynamic, added Mark Leinbach and Doug Zehr. Leinbach is executive director of , Dundee, Ohio, while Zehr is a Foosland, Illinois, farmer who will soon start a job with Orrville, Ohio-based .

Spending a lot of time together outside class was also part of the benefit, said Ruth-Ann Shantz, from London, Ontario. Group members ate every meal together and found “they could bounce significant day-to-day issues off each other,” noted George Lehman, PhD. Lehman is the Howard Raid professor of business at Bluffton and served as instructor of the “Leadership and Management for the Common Good” class.

“We packed a lot of content into five days,” said Lehman about the class, which included a one-day visit from Bill Grace. G,” which summarizes 25 years of study on how businesses and other organizations develop leaders.

The content, including a self-assessment by each individual of “who you are as a leader,” proved challenging, according to Chris Paterson, who works for the network in Iowa City, Iowa.

Cohort members studied leadership styles and discussed both where they’re going as leaders and where they would ideally like to go, Zehr explained. “This will be a journey in getting there,” he acknowledged, but, said King, “I’m glad we have this framework to operate from.”

It was good to hear that there’s a “higher purpose” as a leader in an organization, added Dominique Burgunder-Johnson, director of online campaigns for the in Washington, D.C.

Paterson said he has worked for 10 years with community leaders who have tried to approach issues differently but haven’t been quite sure how to do it. The Collaborative MBA shows “there are ways you can be leaders for ‘the common good,’” he said, predicting “a large potential audience for this.”

Paterson and his peers—alumni of the three collaborating institutions as well as others—will jointly take nine of the 12 courses in the program, which has been in the planning stages since fall 2010. Faculty from Bluffton, Eastern Mennonite and Goshen will each teach three of the nine courses via videoconference. Students will take the remaining three courses, in their respective concentrations, from the institution where they are offered. Program concentrations are leadership; health care management; accounting and financial management; leading nonprofits; conflict transformation; sustainability; intercultural leadership; and a self-designed concentration.

The shared experience of the residency reinforced the value of “walking together and not alone,” said cohort member Bethany Nussbaum, advancement director at in Kidron, Ohio. “This is just a reminder that it’s so important.”