Through education, research, and outreach, the Center for Global Leadership promotes three core ideals: cross-cultural awareness, ethical international business relationships, and responsible global leadership. These ideals are firmly rooted in the university’s Augustinian tradition, which focuses on the moral and ethical development of our students and faculty and our contributions to thriving global communities.

Guiding Principles

The Center for Global Leadership promotes the following principles:

• Cross-cultural awareness - Despite globalization and integration among economies, important cultural differences remain. Indeed, globalization has provided greater opportunity for acknowledging and celebrating the rich cultural differences that characterize societies around the world. The center supports sensitivity to and knowledge about cross-cultural differences that are critical to developing productive relationships of mutual respect among organizations and leaders around the world.
• Ethical international business relationships - The importance of ethical decision making in business cannot be underestimated, especially at a global level where different approaches to ethical behavior persist. At the center, ethics training goes beyond the theoretical to teach students and executives how to develop effective, practical management methods and systems that ensure high levels of professional conduct in their organizations as they tackle the challenges that accompany global expansion.
• Responsible global leadership - To be successful, today’s global leaders need to consider the moral implications of their behavior. Now more than ever, executives must make decisions based on core values and shared ideals that enhance both organizations and society around the world. CGL helps current and future leaders identify those values and ideals and create ways to bring them to life.

Our Foundation

Building on our Augustinian foundation, Villanova University has a longstanding tradition of promoting values-based educational and extracurricular activities. In addition to the Center for Global Leadership, other international and global initiatives and organizations with which the center collaborates include:

• VSB study abroad programs
• The International Business Society
• The Villanova University Office of International Studies
• The Institute for Interdisciplinary Global Studies
• The Area Studies program, housed in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (African Studies, Arabic Studies, East Asian Studies, French and Francophone Studies, Germanic Studies, Hispanic Studies, Irish Studies, Italian Studies, Japanese Studies, Latin American Studies, Russian Studies, Spanish Studies)

In addition, the center continues to cooperate with the many initiatives across the university focused on mission, ethics, and global citizenship:

• An active Campus Ministry, which oversees one of the largest university-based Habitat for Humanity programs in the country, and other mission trips
• The Center for Peace and Justice Education
• The Office for Mission Effectiveness, which works to incorporate Catholic and Augustinian values into life