Nonprofit Executive Leadership Institute Faculty

Session II Faculty
Session II Seminar Descriptions

Leadership and Management Differences

Peter J. Dean, PhD heads Leaders by Design, the men’s leadership development division of The Leader’s Edge.  Dr. Dean is a lecturer in Communication, Ethics and Leadership at the Wharton School and Fels Center of Government at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Dean held the O. Alfred Granum Chair in Management at The American College in Bryn Mawr where he was a Management and Leadership professor and founded the MSM in Leadership graduate degree program.  He has been on the faculty at Fordham University, University of Tennessee, Pennsylvania State University and the University of Iowa.  Peter holds his PhD in Learning Psychology and Human Resources management from the University of Iowa and an MS degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Dean’s articles have been published in Journal of Business Ethics, Human Resource Development Quarterly, Performance Improvement Quarterly, Performance Improvement Journal, Quarterly Review of Distance Education, Australian Journal of Education Technology, and the Financial Times.

Managerial Leadership: Delegating for Development 

Ray Wells, Phd is the president of Wellbeing Systems, Inc. (WSI), of Abington, PA, a training and consulting firm that uses a strength-based approach for designing leadership, team and organization development programs for its clients.  This approach, which focuses on accentuating and building on "who we are when we are at our best," has helped the firm capture the energy and professional passion of the people it serves.  Over the past 21 years, WSI has worked with nearly 100 non-profit, business, and education clients in organizations ranging from just a dozen people to the Fortune 500, from the smallest private schools to the Ivy League, from single-office non-profit agencies to the largest corporate health systems. 

Ray also serves as Program Director for the Eastern Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Montgomery County and as residential and international faculty for the Foundation for the Advancement of International Medical Education and Research (FAIMER).  FAIMER Institutes serve medical school faculty from developing countries in South America, Africa and Asia who have the potential to play a key role in improving medical education in their schools. 

Ray earned his Master of Arts from Bowling Green State University (OH) in adult development and his Ph.D. in applied social-psychology from Temple University.

Group and System Dynamics: Top, Middles and Bottoms

Nancie Zane, PhD. Dr. Zane is a social psychologist and a partner with Praxis Consulting Group. For over twenty years, Nancie has worked with small and large non-profits--staff, leadership, and boards—as well as public sector organizations and for-profits to help them re-align their organizational mission, culture, and structure through innovative visioning and strategic planning processes.  She also uses her individual and group skills to build leadership teams, strengthen staff relationships and develop effective communication strategies to help organizations achieve their goals. In addition, Nancie has worked with a range of trade associations designing and implementing new governance structures and building organizational capacity.  Further, Nancie heads the coaching practice within Praxis that serves mid- and upper-level managers and has coached in the Wharton Advanced Management and the Executive Education Programs.

Dr. Zane is a member of the faculty of the Dynamics of Organization Program at the University of Pennsylvania where she co-teaches courses in organizational diagnosis and assessment and nonprofit leadership. She has designed and delivered courses on organizational assessment, group dynamics, women and leadership, and intergroup relations as a visiting lecturer at the University of Haifa and the Golda Meir Center in Haifa, Israel. Her co-authored publication with Kenwyn Smith, Ph.D, Organizational Reflections: Parallel Processes at Work in a Dual Consultation won a Macgregor Award in 2001 from the Journal of Applied Behavioral Sciences. Her other publications focus on the creation of corporate commitment to organizational diversity as well as re-thinking student discipline in the context of school restructuring.

She received a B.S. from Cornell University in criminal justice and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania with a concentration in social psychology.

Karen L. Proudford, PhD. Dr. Proudford works with organizations interested in using constructive modes of interaction among employees, clients, and constituent groups to facilitate the attainment of organizational goals and objectives.  Dr. Proudford is an Associate Professor of Management at the Earl G. Graves School of Business and Management, Morgan State University, and teaches courses in organizational behavior, human resource management and related disciplines.  She is also affiliated with the Center for Gender in Organizations, at the Simmons School of Management.  She received her B.S. degree in Accounting summa cum laude from Florida A&M University and her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Management from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to beginning her career in academia, she held positions at Honeywell, Inc. and IBM.

Dr. Proudford’s research focuses on group and intergroup dynamics, diversity and conflict.  She has presented papers and lectures on these topics -- and on the related issues of leadership, organizational growth and change, and motivation -- at academic and professional conferences.  Her work has appeared in Group and Organization Management, the Journal of Labor and Employment Law, the Journal of Career Development, The Diversity Factor, the International Review of Women and Leadership, and in the volumes  Addressing Cultural Issues in Organizations:  Beyond the Corporate Context, The Handbook of Workplace Diversity, and most recently, Gender, Race, and Ethnicity in the Workplace.  Dr. Proudford was recently named a Fulbright Senior Specialist Candidate.