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    Nov 04, 2024  
2024-2025 Catalog 
    
2024-2025 Catalog

Organizational Leadership and Human Skills Development, BA


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This program is in teach-out status and is no longer accepting applicants.

Program Information


The purpose of the Bachelor of Arts in Organizational Leadership and Human Skills Development is to address the need for the critical skills that are in continual demand in organizations and businesses of all sizes, from the small startup to large multinationals. Organizations are in constant need of workers across all levels of the organization who can influence, inspire others, and demonstrate best practices. These workers have a set of human skills or “soft skills” that revolve around the human dimension of organizations such as demonstrating emotional and social intelligence, building teams, managing conflict, communicating effectively, fostering creativity and innovation, adaptability, and understanding diversity. Employer needs are shifting in response to rapid changes in local and global industry and the marketplace and, as a result, college graduates, mid-career professionals, and seasoned executives must keep refreshing not only their leadership skills and expertise but especially these soft skills that connect, empower, and mobilize people.

Student Learning Outcomes

Students who complete the BA in Organizational Leadership and Human Skills Development will be able to:

  • Design and create written communications that clearly articulate and advance ideas, arguments, solutions, and strategies.
  • Demonstrate interpersonal communication skills in individual relationships and collaborative projects with teams and external clients using persuasive speech to provide clear directions and guidelines in and beyond organizational settings.
  • Locate, analyze, and apply information-taking advantage of various research approaches and tools to address organizational problems or to weigh the merits of a solution of emerging possibility.
  • Demonstrate how the use and interpretation of quantitative data based on team and individual assessment data can be used to support professional and team development as well as strengthen the overall effectiveness of the organization.
  • Demonstrate specialized knowledge of leading and leadership that includes effective approaches and practices that influence people and processes and which can accelerate employee engagement, organizational performance, transformation, and change.
  • Develop innovative approaches and solutions to existing issues and new opportunities that strengthen diversity and inclusion relating to people, perspectives, and cultures within organizations and the communities in which those organizations exist.
  • Identify and apply practices that support innovation, creativity, and design thinking and which can generate solutions to systemic problems, as well as leverage emerging opportunities that impact people, communities, and organizations.
  • Identify approaches and employ practices that can constructively address and manage conflict and facilitate crucial conversations.
  • Build agile and adaptive responses to individual, team, and organizational change and disruption generated by local, national, and global forces and experienced within business and industry settings.

Requirements for the Bachelor of Arts in Organizational Leadership and Human Skills Development


The degree requires completion of 120 units as follows: 36 units of general education, 33 units for the major, and 51 units of elective courses, including courses taken to earn minors. (See Declaring Minors below for more information.) Each course listed carries three semester units of credit, unless otherwise noted. A cumulative grade-point average of 2.00 “C” or higher is required in all courses taken at Golden Gate University.

All degree-seeking undergraduate students must complete their English, mathematics and critical thinking requirements within their first 27 units at Golden Gate University, unless they have already earned credit for the equivalent courses from another institution and have had those courses accepted in transfer by Golden Gate University. If either math or English requirements for the degree have not been satisfied, newly enrolled students must take placement tests to ensure proper placement in the appropriate math or English course. Students may also choose to waive the placement tests and enroll in the first course in either series, which are ENGL 10A  and MATH 10  . (See the course descriptions below to identify courses that have prerequisite course requirements.)

General Education - 36 units


Lifelong Learning and Self Development - 3 units


Communication and Critical Thinking - 9 units


Quantitative Reasoning - 3 units


One of the following:

Liberal Studies - 21 units


Major Requirements - 33 units


Elective Courses - 51 units


Select seventeen additional 3-unit upper or lower-division courses from any subject for a total of 51 units. Note: courses used to complete minors also count toward this requirement.

Declaring Minors


Students may declare up to two minors for their bachelor’s degree programs. Students seeking to declare more than two minors will be required to appeal to the dean for approval.

Students will not be permitted to declare minors at the point of application but may do so following admission or prior to degree conferral. Students should make their minor declarations through their assigned academic advisors by submission of the Declaration of Minor form.

Students’ diplomas will list the minors that they had successfully completed at the time their degrees were conferred. Students may not declare additional minors after their degrees have been conferred.

Bachelor’s degree-seeking students may declare the minors shown below. Note: students may not declare minors that are the same as their majors.

Undergraduate Honors Program


The School of Undergraduate Studies’ honors program provides opportunities for students enrolled in all degree programs to engage in enriched learning experiences while they work toward earning their degrees. Students do not need to apply separately for this program, but may participate in it by registering for honors-designated course sections, as described below. Upon graduation, students who have completed the honors program must complete and submit the Honors Program Notation Request form to the Registrar’s Office to have the notation added to their transcripts.

Honors-designated course sections will emphasize the following learning outcomes: media and information literacy, quantitative fluency, oral/written communication, and critical thinking. Students will be required to complete advanced and more rigorous assignments that demonstrate learning beyond the articulated course outcomes. Additional assessments will be designed to emphasize core skills such as critical thinking, writing, research, and self-reflection.

Program Requirements

To complete the honors program, students must complete any combination of 12 units (four 3-unit courses) of honors-designated sections and an honors-designated capstone course section (3 units) for a total of 15 units, with a minimum GPA in the five honors courses of 3.00 and a minimum overall degree program GPA of 3.30. Note: honors course sections can be identified in the online course schedule with a section prefix beginning with the letter “A” (e.g., ASF1) and by information in the section comments field of the section details page. Students should contact their academic advisor or the Registrar’s Office if they need help identifying honors-designated course sections. 

Honors sections of the courses below will be offered every term. In addition, students who transfer any of these courses into GGU may petition to have an honors section offered of other courses in order to satisfy the 12-unit requirement. Students should contact their academic advisors to begin the petition process. 

Capstone Course - 3 units


Complete the honors section of the capstone course applicable to the student’s degree program.

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