Sarah Chace

Center for Sustainability in Education - Honors Program - Department of Leadership and American Studies

Associate Professor

Luter Hall 212B
(757) 594-0737
sarah.chace@cnu.edu

Education

Ed D in Adult Learning and Leadership, Columbia University
MPA in Leadership, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
MA in English Literature, University of Massachusetts

Teaching

Interdisciplinary approaches to contemporary politics and culture; history of leadership studies; transformative learning.

Research

group relations; adult development; adaptive leadership; American culture and politics; psychodynamics of organizational behavior.

Biography

Sarah Chace, Ed.D., is an associate professor of leadership studies at Christopher Newport University. She has worked, consulted, and taught in the field of Leadership Studies since 2001. While studying at the Harvard Kennedy School she encountered Heifetz's model of adaptive leadership, upon which her dissertation and first book was later based. While at the Kennedy School she also served as a Teaching Assistant for Dr. Heifetz. She has served as an adjunct, a visiting assistant professor, and an assistant professor at various institutions of higher learning since 2009. In 2022 she was granted tenure at Christopher Newport University. Dr. Chace has published articles using adaptive leadership as a lens of analysis for past and current cultural and political issues in the US. or many years she was also a teacher in K-12 education systems. Her current research is focused on political moments in the US and abroad as interpreted through the lenses of critical leadership studies and psychodynamic theories of organizational behavior.

Selected Accomplishments

Teaching Certificate, Center for Effective Teaching. (2022)

Book, Chapter in Scholarly Book-New
(2024). "The Skein of language that contains us: Narrative as holding environment". Routledge.
Journal Article, Academic Journal
(2021). " 'Unlocking Us': Analyzing the US Election and its Aftermath". Leadership. Volume, 17. Issue, 3. Pages, 365-375.
Journal Article, Academic Journal
(2020). "A Distant Mirror": Sense-making in the Era of Trump. Leadership. Volume, 17. Issue, 2. Pages, 212-229.
Book, Chapter in Scholarly Book-New
(2019). "Uses of a Holding Environment as Container for Stepping Up and Stepping Back". Emerald Publishing.
Book, Chapter in Scholarly Book-New
(2017). "What is 'The Work' of Breaking the Zero-Sum Game?". Emerald Publishing Group. Pages, 14 pages.

William Donaldson, Sarah Chace, International Studying Leadership Conference - Rebooting Leadership, "RE-BOOTING DEMOCRACY IN THE US: Interpreting the Capitol Insurrection of January 6th," Virtual. (2021)
Sarah Chace, Women's Leadership Summit, ""Women, Leadership, and Adaptive Work"," Great Barrington, MA. (2017)