There isn't one single path to becoming a leader, and methods of leadership can be as varied as the individuals who lead. Great leaders come from all backgrounds and are always seeking opportunities to learn.
What each person brings to a leadership role is shaped by the journey that brought them to where they are. A truly effective leader has learned to lead by calling upon their experiences and utilizing their unique talents. But it isn't always easy learning how to do this on your own.
Taking the opportunity to study leadership can result in immense personal growth and self-awareness. A master’s degree in leadership studies can help you strengthen and hone your personal style of leadership. When you become a better leader, you become more equipped to collaborate with others and achieve goals in any professional or personal setting.
Meet Troy Williams, MA in Leadership Studies
Troy Williams graduated from SOLES with an MA in Leadership studies and is currently pursing his PhD. He recently shared his own unique story about what led him to study leadership at USD and how his time at USD helped shape his life both personally and professionally.
Tell us about your degree program and why you chose it.
I was a non-traditional student. I started a business right out of high school and I didn’t start college until I was 24. That business was event planning and event promotion based in Atlanta, Georgia. Around 2008 when Barack Obama was running for president, he said, “I think all Americans should have a college degree,” and I thought I might as well give it a try.
The first semester I didn’t do that well; I didn’t have the techniques for studying. I started taking classes that taught me how to read effectively (the abstract, intro, and conclusion things that folks do) and I just started doing better and better. I switched my major from business to sociology, really got engulfed in sociology, started studying abroad, and just became a lifelong learner after that.
For graduate school, I knew I had to leave Atlanta. I conducted a study during undergrad at Clayton State in Atlanta with Dr. Rafik Mohamed. It was on Black college drug dealers, and one of the gentlemen that I interviewed—actually I didn’t get to interview him yet, I was preparing to interview him—was murdered. That really scared me so much that I had to leave Atlanta. “Scared” is the wrong adjective, but it was so traumatizing and so shocking. We weren’t best friends or anything…he was one of my best friend’s best friends, so he was often at our house. So when he was murdered, it just shocked me. I said, “I have to leave Atlanta”.
USD was the first school to actively recruit me, so USD was top of my list. I applied to Chapman and Georgia State as well. I got into all of those schools but I decided to come to USD because I met Dr. Zachary Green and he just blew my mind during the visit. He told me, “You can choose those other programs, but this program will shape you and benefit you.” He said it so eloquently that I knew that I had to learn from him.
How were you involved on campus during your time in the program?
I participated in the Black Grad Student Association. One of the things they organized, they’d say, “Hey, let’s go to this meetup thing.” I ended up meeting my wife because of that! I didn’t organize anything, but I attended programming that they would put together. Also, more so than anything, my colleagues and peers, the friendships that I developed, were very central to me translating what was happening there. Friendships and peers I developed from that program…if it wasn’t for those friendships, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. I would have dropped out.
I was also a Resident Minister on campus and that was a really fun experience. I was a Camino Resident Minister and lived there. I don’t want to say I oversaw the RAs, because that’s what RDs do, but as a Resident Minister I offered counsel to them; untraditional counsel. I gave them advice and also worked collaboratively with my students, held weekly Emmaus groups, and organized community-building activities, as well.
Even as I transitioned over to my PhD program, I am very into building these types of spaces and environments where folks can just talk, chat, and get to know one another.
Tell us a little bit about your journey since graduating.
At the end of my time at SOLES, I was focused on finishing my documentary, writing a 100-page thesis, and conducting this research. One of my colleagues in SOLES was the executive director of an elementary school and she asked if I wanted to work at her school. I said I had no interest in being a teacher, but I would give it a shot. I worked there for a year and a half, and that was actually my very first time working in the community, really hands-on like first responders almost.
As a teacher, I was seeing what people were experiencing, seeing first-hand the pain of poverty, and that was a lot to experience. I would drive to work some days crying in tears just thinking about my students, and thinking about their families. Then, the Black Resource Center at UC San Diego opened up a position and I ended up getting a job there. I worked there for about a year and that work was extremely difficult. In that position, I was helping students out if there was anything racial that happened to them, like if there was some type of hate crime. Then on top of all of that, I was doing all of the higher education things, like putting on programs and such.
In 2016, I became a RISE Fellow, and I loved that! We had to create things called “community action projects,” so I worked with two other guys to create a nonprofit organization called The Crime Resistance Institute. We created a space for practitioners, activists, creatives, poets, artists, singers, and musicians to come together in fellowship. One of them is still doing it in San Diego; it’s called Soul Sunday.
Also in 2016, I started sending my documentary out to academic conferences and one of the conferences that I went to was the Pacific Sociological Association; I went there to showcase my work and I showed my documentary. It just so happened that I saw the program that I’m in now, the Civil Society and Community Research Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Their graduate program director saw my work and showed it to someone on their staff, and they flew me out to Wisconsin; they just really rolled out the red carpet.
I ended up coming to the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2017 and getting trained as a Community Based Program Evaluator, which is what I am now. I’ve evaluated programs for the state of Wisconsin through the Department of Health Services, and through the CDC.
Currently, my research is on African American opioid use in Wisconsin. Right now in Wisconsin, (there’s about five other states like this) Black people are overdosing on opioids at much higher rates, but it’s underreported. So that’s what my research is going to be on: what are the conditions that are causing these overdoses and this use? I plan to talk about the infrastructure that could prevent it.
How do you think your SOLES education has impacted your career aspirations and your focus?
Right now, I’m in the School of Human Ecology and I like to say I’m a systems scientist; I examine and explore systems. That idea of actually “going to the balcony” is something that we learned a lot, and seeing the entire system has impacted me in ways that I can’t even verbalize. In fact, a quote that I’m actually trademarking right now that was planted in SOLES and truly developed in my Ph.D. program is, “There are no solutions, there are only responses.” Meaning that a lot of times we think, “This is the solution to this issue,” but if you’re thinking in a systems type of way, and if you’re understanding complexity theory, you understand that once you create a solution to the issue, someone else is going to create a way to respond to your solution.
At SOLES, I learned that as a leader, we have to think of the responses as impactfully as possible to be able to navigate our lives in the most efficient ways. That seed began in SOLES, which I’m very grateful for.
Is there a moment from your time in the program that you still look back on?
In November 2014, Darren Wilson had just been acquitted for murdering Michael Brown, and a week had gone by and the Black students on campus, well not just the Black students, but students on our campus were confused, wondering, “What does this mean for our world? What does this experience mean for Black people? How can I be an ally to you?”
This wasn’t being discussed on the larger realm of campus…no one was talking about it. Myself, another SOLES student who had an assistantship at the BSRC, and Dr. Ashley Barton all came together and said we have to organize a program right now. Even though we are still processing these emotions, we need to do something right away to address this issue.
We put together this program—we were expecting 20 or so people, we weren’t even expecting a huge turnout, but over 200 people came to this event. It was standing room only in the basement and very packed; we had to break up into small sessions. Within the sessions we organized, we all were able to impact and explore how our university assists with these issues and how to navigate them in a more effective manner. That was a turning point, if you’re looking at the decade in its entirety.
If you could offer advice to a current SOLES student in your program, what would you tell them?
Get out into the community. San Diego is an amazing place! Explore San Diego, like the actual communities in San Diego (City Heights and Southeast) explore those.
Write a thesis, even though it’s more difficult to do. I don’t even know if that’s an option anymore, but writing my thesis put me lightyears ahead of my current PhD colleagues. They had to learn how to conduct research, but I learned that in my master’s program because I was one of the only people who decided to do that. Don’t let school get in the way of that much larger education that you can pick up on while you’re in graduate school.
I would also tell them that they have to take 550. Please take 550! Also, I would say attend conferences! Attend and present at conferences! Publish articles and try to get a grant. When you try to enter the job market, those three things set you light years ahead of people. That’s something I wish I would have done more in my master’s program. Even if I would have been the fifth author on something, I think it would have been much easier to figure out life.
When people are in their graduate programs at my school, I tell them, please write a paper, present your research at a conference; even if it’s a paper you wrote for a class, present that at a conference and try to get a grant. Even if it’s a blind grant and you don’t get it, that being on your CV (that you were a finalist on a $100K grant), that looks good on your resume. People see that and think, “Wow, this person is willing to put themselves out there.”
Discover Your Path to Leadership at USD SOLES
The SOLES Master’s in Leadership Studies is designed for candidates who seek to create innovative and dynamic approaches to learning and leadership. The MA offers a unique degree of freedom and flexibility to discover your unique style of leadership and create opportunities for personal growth. Students are invited to examine, reflect and act on passionate concerns, working closely with faculty and fellow students, to bring theory and practice together to meet academic and professional goals.
Interested in studying leadership at USD SOLES? Our leadership guide is designed to help you discover how a Master's in Leadership Studies can help you strengthen your personal style of leadership.
