UMD Executive Development and Gettysburg Foundation Launch 'The Gettysburg Experience'

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - The University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business is teaming up with the Gettysburg Foundation to deliver an executive development program built around and using lessons from the Battle of Gettysburg, the Civil War, and Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. 

The new series — The Gettysburg Experience — focuses on organizational and personal leadership, teamwork, and strategic agility for a powerful, unique learning experience leveraging the historical and academic resources of Maryland Smith and the foundation, its organizers say.

Customized, 1-3-day-long programs at Gettysburg will explore Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and “Current Conversations about the Battle of Gettysburg.” The latter includes “Civil Rights and the legacy of the Civil War,” “Women and the War,” “the Civil War in a Global Context,” and more.

“Gettysburg will always be remembered as an epic battlefield—and rightly so. But, its significance to the American democratic experiment runs much deeper,” says Matthew Moen, President of the Gettysburg Foundation. “For 155 years Gettysburg represents a place of remarkable healing, civility, inclusion and responsibility.”

The series incorporates the Gettysburg Foundation’s existing program of field-based training for Smith’s Executive Development clients. This arrangement builds on Smith professors independently directing executive development program participants and executive MBA students in onsite, Gettysburg-themed leadership classes. “Learning happens in varied contexts and needs to be increasingly impactful to keep adult learners engaged,” says Christine Thompson, Ed.D., executive director of Smith’s Executive Development programs. “It’s exciting for the Smith School of Business to rekindle a partnership with the Gettysburg Foundation to uniquely impact leadership development experiences for organizations and leaders.” 

The new partnership is “a unique, flexible means for conveying the lessons of leadership and teamwork unavailable elsewhere,” Thompson adds. “Smith’s educational resources— facilities, faculty, and expertise—provide a solid delivery mechanism for translating the lessons of the Battle of Gettysburg into meaningful and relevant business training for organizations of all types.”

The Gettysburg Experience is designed specifically to meet client needs based upon consultation between the client, the foundation and Smith. The programs may involve an expertly guided and experiential battlefield tour; facilitated debriefs and deep dives into select topics, networking dinners and more.

Participants experience the program through Gettysburg locations McPherson Ridge, Eternal Light Peace Memorial, Little Round Top, The Peach Orchard, Pennsylvania Memorial and High Water Mark.

Leadership topics broadly include communication, team building, empowerment, adaptability, strategic and visionary thinking, decision-making under pressure, accountability, execution and strategic agility

In addition, the Gettysburg Foundation will work with Smith to build open enrollment programs and alumni events that bring groups of executives to Gettysburg through the partnership program. “We are excited to dive deeper into these broader leadership themes, as well as those taught on the battlefield, through our partnership with UMD,” says Moen.

Smith Dean Alex Triantis says: “The Smith School is proud to partner with the Gettysburg Foundation to create meaningful and high-impact programming for today’s and tomorrow’s leaders. Experiential and lifelong learning is an integral part of the Smith School’s core mission and we look forward to continuing this partnership for years to come.”

For more information about The Gettysburg Experience program, write to execed@rhsmith.umd.edu.

Learn more about The Gettysburg Foundation.

Learn more about Executive Development at Smith.

About the Gettysburg Foundation
The Gettysburg Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit philanthropic educational organization that operates in partnership with the National Park Service to preserve Gettysburg National Military Park and the Eisenhower National Historic Site, and to educate the public about their significance.