Gov. Asa Hutchinson has declared September to be Arkansas Leadership Academy 25th Anniversary Month, but the academy's success goes far beyond its longevity.

Since the Arkansas General Assembly created the academy in 1991, it has been copied by other states, recognized by national organizations and praised by many of the estimated 14,000 participants. Participants in institutes offered by the academy include teachers, principals and superintendents from across Arkansas. The leadership academy is based in the College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas and is made up of 51 partner organizations including 15 universities; nine professional associations; 15 educational cooperatives; the Arkansas departments of Education, Higher Education, and Career Education; the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce; the Arkansas Educational Television Network; Tyson Foods, Inc.; Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.; superintendent representatives; legislative liaisons; the Office of the Governor; and the State Board of Education.

Steve Singleton, now retired, had been superintendent at Marion in eastern Arkansas for two years when he attended the first Arkansas Leadership Academy institute in 1992.

"A superintendent's job can be really lonely," said Singleton, who went on to hold other administrative positions including superintendent of Mountain Home and Jonesboro school districts. "That first group was a really good group to go with. There were a lot of really experienced leaders to share and learn with. When I started at Marion, it had 2,200 students and when I left it had 2,800 students. It was an extremely fast-growing district and what I learned from the academy is that all superintendents share some challenges, whether they work in a rural, small district or a large, urban district, anywhere in the state.

"That first institute offered us a lot of time in the evenings and between sessions to sit and talk," Singleton continued. "We discovered our issues were not unique and we could help each other."

That kind of cooperation was a major component of what the academy was designed to foster as it developed leadership skills for Arkansas schools, said Beverly Reed Elliott, the first director.

Before the academy was created, silos had developed among the schools and the state agencies that regulated them, the schools and the higher education institutions that prepared teachers and administrators, and among the schools themselves, said Elliott, who during her career in education worked as a teacher, administrator, state agency official and education professor.

"We were all in our separate silos," she said. "At the first institute, we had 20 superintendents and 10 partner representatives. They spent a week together with wonderful facilitators, and it was amazing to see the relationships grow. We began to trust each other and help each other and listen to each other."

The academy took a big risk inviting some of the most respected superintendents in the state to that first institute, Elliott said.

"We gambled that, if they said this wasn't any good, no one would come, but if they said it was good, it would go forward," she said. "That was a huge gamble."

Business leaders such as Tyson Foods and Walmart Stores played a large role in the academy's success, too, Elliott said. In addition to private funding, the Arkansas Leadership Academy received great support from both Republican and Democratic legislators and governors in programs and funding throughout the years.

Archie Schaffer was the executive director of the Arkansas Business Council, also known as the "Good Suit Club," formed in the 1980s to work with Gov. Bill Clinton and state legislators on education reform and economic development issues. Founders were Don Tyson, Sam Walton and Charles Murphy.

"One of the things that came out of that work was the importance of principals in creating a successful secondary education climate," said Schaffer who went to work in the corporate office of Tyson Foods in 1991 at about the same time the leadership academy was being created. He knew Elliott through his work with the business council, and Schaffer served on the original board of directors of the leadership academy.

Tyson offered its management development center in Russellville as a more central location for the academy to host its early training institutes. Elliott said the facility with its high-quality accommodations for both work and leisure - and the food - made staying five days at the institute enjoyable for the superintendents, several of whom had dead car batteries when it was time to go because they hadn't driven since they arrived.

"Having the Tyson center was a very positive factor in getting them up and running," said Schaffer. "I don't think there's any question that the success of a lot of different schools and school districts around the state can be traced back to the work of the leadership academy and training and the experiences of the people who went through it from the beginning until now."

Walmart was another early supporter of the leadership academy. Elliott recalled once when a Walmart representative asked what office supplies and other materials the company could supply. She was surprised when they were delivered in a semitractor-trailer.

The University of Arkansas also provided vital support for the academy such as office space, bookkeeping services and release time from teaching duties for faculty members, Elliott said.

Diana Julian, associate professor of education at Harding University, continues to use some of the leadership academy techniques in her courses to prepare school principals. Julian, the superintendent of the Bryant School District at the time, served on a committee that helped develop the academy after the legislation was approved and the University of Arkansas was chosen as the host site.

"We wanted strong leadership for schools in Arkansas and when I say strong, I mean effective," Julian said. "Things were happening so fast. A lot of research was coming forward in education, research that we had not had our hands on before. This was a way to disseminate information. Participants were enclosed, cut off from communication and they didn't have to deal with small, mundane things."

She later went to work for the Arkansas Department of Education and became a facilitator at the academy training institutes, focusing on on-site decision-making.

Participants formed bonds that allowed them to continue to communicate long after the sessions were over, said Julian, who was also a participant in the first institute.

"As you were staying together, you worked as a group and became friends," she said. "You could call on anybody that had been through that because of the way we set it up. If you saw something you were worried about, you were safe enough to call your neighbor and say, 'This is what I'm hearing. Can I help?'

"One thing (the academy) did was level the playing field for superintendents of large and small school districts," Julian said. "You were all in there together, all making the same kind of decisions, all doing the same work."

As a superintendent, Julian sent school district personnel to the leadership academy for training whenever possible.

"It was excellent training for them, and they actually worked on a specific problem," she said. "Then, when I asked them to come in and work on a problem, they knew they would be listened to. They were more confident and felt better about having a part in decision-making."

Institutes are now held at the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute, which is part of the U of A System, near Morrilton in central Arkansas. More information about the Arkansas Leadership Academy is available on its website.