The Fifth Discipline Author, Dr. Peter M. Senge, to Speak at the Aurora University Community Leadership Forum

AURORA, Ill. August 28, 2006 - Dr. Peter M. Senge, senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, will present a leadership development program as part of Aurora University’s Community Leadership Forum on Wednesday, Sept. 20.

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The program, Collaborative Leadership and the Learning Organization, will be held from 8 to 10:30 a.m. at the Crimi auditorium in AU’s Institute for Collaboration, 407 S. Calumet Ave. in Aurora.

In this special presentation, Dr. Senge will share his latest insights and challenge the thinking of participants as to the role of personal leadership, organizational learning and the power of collaboration.

This program is designed for business, community, and educational leaders who are interested in exploring leadership issues as Dr. Senge reflects on his writings for the audience.

Sponsors of the event are Nicor, MetLife and Sikich Group, LLC, gold sponsors; Harris Investment Management, Inc. and McDonald’s, silver sponsors; and Caterpillar, Inc., City of Aurora, and Human Resources Management Systems, LLC, bronze sponsors.

Tickets are $100 per person, including a continental breakfast. For more information or to make reservations, call the university at 630-844-5486, or e-mail sengeevent@aurora.edu. Additional information and a downloadable registration form are also available at www.aurora.edu/senge.

In addition to presenting the morning leadership-development program, Senge will help the university and The Aurora Foundation inaugurate the first Aurora Community Symposium from 12:30 to 2:15 p.m. on Sept. 20 at Perry Theatre in the Aurora Foundation Center for Community Enrichment at 1305 Kenilworth Place in Aurora.

Senge will dialogue with invited area middle-school students, community leaders, and Aurora University faculty members and students on after-school initiatives.

The symposium will create a venue to provide insight into and discussion surrounding critical issues and shared interests. The Aurora Community Symposium is offered in partnership by the Aurora Foundation, the area’s community foundation, and Aurora University.

The symposium is designed to provide a venue for the exchange of ideas; foster deeper understanding among program participants and stimulate the development of collaborative solutions to shared problems.

Peter M. Senge is a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also founding chair of the Society for Organizational Learning (SoL), a global community of corporations, researchers, and consultants dedicated to the "interdependent development of people and their institutions."

He is the author of the widely acclaimed book, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of The Learning Organization (1990, revised edition published 2006) and, with colleagues Charlotte Roberts, Rick Ross, Bryan Smith and Art Kleiner, co-author of The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization (1994) and a fieldbook The Dance of Change: The Challenges to Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations (March, 1999), also co-authored by George Roth.

The Fifth Discipline hit a nerve deep within the business and education community by introducing the theory of learning organizations. Since its publication, more than two million copies have been sold world-wide.

In 1997, Harvard Business Review identified it as one of the seminal management books of the past 75 years. There have been feature articles in Business Week, Fortune, Fast Company, Sloan Management Review and other leading business periodicals regarding the work of Dr. Senge and his colleagues at MIT and SoL.

In September 2000, a fieldbook on education was published, the award winning Schools That Learn: A Fifth Discipline Fieldbook for Educators, Parents, and Everyone Who Cares About Education, co-authored with Nelda Cambron-McCabe, Timothy Lucas, Bryan Smith, Janis Dutton, and Art Kleiner.

A recent book, Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future, co-authored with Claus Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski and Betty Sue Flowers, was published in March 2004 by the Society for Organizational Learning.

Dr. Senge has lectured extensively throughout the world, translating the abstract ideas of systems theory into tools for better understanding of economic and organizational change. His areas of special interest focus on decentralizing the role of leadership in organizations so as to enhance the capacity of all people to work productively toward common goals.

Dr. Senge's work articulates a cornerstone position of human values in the workplace; namely, that vision, purpose, reflectiveness, and systems thinking are essential if organizations are to realize their potentials. He has worked with leaders in business, education, health care and government.

The Journal of Business Strategy (September/October 1999) named Dr. Senge as one of the 24 people who had the greatest influence on business strategy over the last 100 years. The Financial Times (2000) named him as one of the world’s “top management gurus.” Business Week (October 2001) rated Senge as one of The Top (ten) Management Gurus.

Senge received a B.S. in engineering from Stanford University, an M.S. in social systems modeling and Ph.D. in management from MIT. He lives with his wife and their two children in central Massachusetts.

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