Leadership Education and Service: Exploring Transformational Learning Following a Tornado Open Access

Each year, millions of people around the world are affected by natural disasters. Following these disasters, many students from colleges and universities arrive to support the affected areas. These seamless leadership learning opportunities engage students by allowing them to implement the concepts they learned in a classroom. Humanitarian relief requires leadership and logistics to mobilize essential resources to aid vulnerable groups affected by these disasters. This qualitative study evaluates two separate relief projects that were hands-on, week- long service trips involving college students responding to two natural disasters in the United States of America. Using data collected from prompt-based journals, the researchers in this study sought to develop a deeper understanding of participant service experiences in relation to leadership education. Leadership education provides valuable reflection points for students and this manuscript outlines key themes from two unique service experiences. This project showcases these reflections and provides a potential qualitative assessment process for similar endeavors useful for both educators and researchers alike.