Alma G Blount, Lecturer in Public Policy and Director, Hart Leadership Program  

Office Location: 104 Sanford Building
Office Phone: (919) 613-7323
Email Address: blt@duke.edu

Areas of Expertise

  • Education
    • Experiential Learning
    • Research/Service Learning
  • Leadership, Ethics, and Public Service

Education:
Masters of Divinity, Harvard University, 1993
Weston Jesuit School of Theology, 1990
B.A., University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, 1980

Research Categories: Civic and political participation; leadership pedagogy assessment

Research Description: Research: political engagement amoung college students; the role of critical reflection in leadership development; assessment of research service-learning pedagogy

Teaching (Fall 2009):

  • Pubpol 137a.01, Adaptive leadership
    Sanford 150, W 06:00 PM-08:30 PM

Representative Publications   (More Publications)

  1. A.G. Blount. "Critical Reflection and Public Life: A Pedagogy for Teaching Undergraduate Students about Leadership." The Journal of Sookmyung Global Leadership No. 5 (June, 2007): 65-84.
  2. A.G. Blount. "Critical Reflection for Public Life: How Reflective Practice Helps Students Become Politically Engaged." Journal of Political Science Education Vo. 2.3 (Fall, 2006).  [author's comments]
  3. A.G. Blount. How Does a Campus Link the Curriculum and Co-Curriculum for Civic Engagement. Democracy and Civic Engagement.  Fall, 2005. (a monograph published by the New York Times and the American Democracy Project, American Association of State Colleges and Universities)
  4. A.G. Blount. "Transforming Lives: Service Opportunities in Leadership." Duke University Libraries (Winter, 2000).
  5. A.G. Blount. "Speaking for Ourselves (article in collection)." Pantheon Books. (1984).

Bio/Profile
Alma Blount became the director of the Hart Leadership Program in 2001 and continues to serve as director of Service Opportunities in Leadership (SOL), a leadership mentoring initiative for undergraduates. As a lecturer in Public Policy Studies, she teaches courses about civic participation and grassroots politics, systems analysis and problem solving within organizations and leadership. She has taught in the department of public policy studies at Duke since 1994.

Blount has been a consultant for numerous non-profit and public sector groups across North Carolina on issues of organizational development and project design. In the 1990s she served as a strategic planning coach for 13 North Carolina counties participating in the Smart Start Program to improve early childhood education and other resources for families and children.

In the 1980s she managed programs for international, faith-based, human-rights organizations in the United States and Central America. She has organized and led numerous delegations from the U.S. on educational tours of Nicaragua and El Salvador. Her strong interest in Latino politics and culture grew out of her work with migrant farm workers in eastern North Carolina. She was an original staff member of The Independent newspaper in Durham, N.C.

She has an M.Div. Degree from Harvard and a B.A. in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Alma G Blount