VANCOUVER, CANADA -- Entrepreneurial Leaders Organization is pleased to announce that Dr. Richard (Rick) J. Goossen, Chairman will be a Visiting Scholar at the University of Oxford from January 7th to February 2nd, 2017. Dr. Goossen will be taking a one-month vacation from his full-time position at Covenant Family Wealth Advisors in the form of a mini-sabbatical. He will be a Visiting Member, Senior Common Room, Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford and a Visiting Scholar, St Stephen’s House, University of Oxford.
Dr. Goossen’s focus while in Oxford will be to work on a book titled, Service Leadership: Sense Making, Calling and Meaning Within Organizations with an expected release in late 2017 by Greenleaf Publishing, UK. His co-author is Theodore (Ted) Roosevelt Malloch, Fellow in Management Practice, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford and CEO, The Roosevelt Group. Dr. Malloch is a widely-published and highly-acclaimed writer, teacher and consultant. Service Leadership details an entire and systematic framework for sense making about calling. The objective of the book is to identify a concept of service leadership that will help organizations engage individuals in their sense of calling—and to give a practical framework to act on it. The challenge for most individuals is that they are not able to pursue this sense of calling within current work environment and, as a result, there is a disconnect for many individuals between work and meaning in life.
There is great synergy between Dr. Goossen’ research interests and his full-time work at Covenant. At Covenant, he works entirely with highly successful Christian entrepreneurs and family business owners across Canada. These business leaders typically focus on how not only to live their own calling, but also how to act as a beacon of light and to empower their employees pursue their own callings, too.
By way of background, for those unfamiliar with Oxford, the central University is composed of academic departments and research centres, administrative departments, libraries and museums. There are 38 colleges which are self-governing and financially independent institutions. There are also six permanent private halls (“PPHs”), which were founded by different Christian denominations and which still retain their Christian character. Fully part of the University, the PPHs operate on a smaller and more intimate scale than the larger colleges and typically offer a somewhat narrower range of subjects.
One PPH is Regent’s Park College which began with the creation of the London Baptist Education Society in 1752. In 1856, it moved across London to the then rural Regent’s Park, and adopted its current name. Until the 1870s students who were not members of Church of England could not study in Britain’s ancient universities. Regent’s Park sought to equip such people – ‘Dissenters’ – for professional careers and to broaden their horizons through an education in the Arts and Law. It eventually moved to its final site in Oxford. In 1957 and became a PPH of the University of Oxford. One important research centre of Regent’s Park College is The Oxford Centre for Christianity and Culture, which explores the relationship of theology and faith to the arts, the law and social issues.
Another PPH is St Stephen’s House, an Anglican theological foundation, offering formation, education and training for a variety of qualifications and ministries. St Stephen’s House was founded in 1876 by members of the “Tractarian Movement” and has stood, ever since, in the catholic tradition of the Church of England. During St Stephen’s first years, it was situated near the centre of Oxford, where the New Bodleian Library now stands. In 1980 it moved to the current site, formerly the mother-house of the Society of St John the Evangelist. The House motto is Video caelos apertos ("I see the heavens opened"), St Stephen's words from Acts 7:56.