A Season of Possibility: New Courses, New Mentorships and a Daughter’s First Day
Typically, summer is a time for professors to detach from their students, classrooms, and grading papers. However, School of Theology and Leadership Professor Dave Heitman is doing the opposite. He’s teaching graduate courses online through the summer while anxiously awaiting the fall semester with great excitement and anticipation.
For Heitman, the start of the fall semester isn’t just about lectures, syllabi or coursework. It’s about formation. Inside Jessup’s SOTL, he sees every classroom, online and in-person, as an opportunity to equip transformational leaders, those students who are capable of influencing organizations, churches, communities and families with wisdom, resilience and authenticity. That mission is what energizes him most.
This fall, Heitman begins his eleventh year with Jessup, building on a year of behind-the-scenes preparation that continues through the summer. With 18 redesigned courses for the new Master of Arts in Transformational Leadership, he oversees the large project as the program director and built three new courses himself, entirely from the ground up, around themes such as building resilient teams, conflict management and self-leadership. Much of this work draws from his doctoral research, but his vision reaches beyond academic theory. Heitman wants students to graduate not only informed, but transformed. “I’m passionate about developing an intentional learning community, with opportunity for dialogue, where students are engaged to find their passion and purpose. A place where students are built up and empowered to lead through practical leadership experiences,” he said. “If students aren’t conversing and engaging, how can they be leading?”
During the academic year, one hour Heitman might be guiding graduate students through organizational leadership models; the next, he’s teaching a Gospel Worldview course to incoming freshmen on how to navigate the emotional, academic and spiritual realities of college life. “I love the diversity in teaching because it keeps me learning, and that matters deeply,” he said.
“I’m passionate about developing an intentional learning community, with opportunity for dialogue, where students are engaged to find their passion and purpose. A place where students are built up and empowered to lead through practical leadership experiences”
Heitman’s daughter Hope is another reason for his enthusiasm. This August, she will be part of the Jessup community. As a business major interested in finance and real estate marketing, she is also pursuing an ambitious parallel dream: becoming a professional ballet dancer. Her decision to attend Jessup traces back to a moment two years ago when, at age 15, she accompanied her dad on a Global Outreach trip to Tanzania. There, surrounded by Jessup students whose lives and faith deeply moved her, she discovered a sense of calling and community that never left. “She saw education changing lives in real time,” Heitman said. “That experience shaped her.” That same conviction shapes him as well.
Outside of Jessup, Heitman regularly partners with local churches delivering seminars and leadership workshops, bringing practical training into ministry contexts that often lack formal leadership development. Some of that influence has traveled unexpectedly far. Through partnerships connected to his current MATL students, Ukrainian church leaders are planting churches inside Russia — a reminder that leadership ripples far beyond the classroom. Last summer he led a group of students to Sumba, Indonesia where they focused on community development, education and children’s ministry to break cycles of poverty.
Heitman recognizes one of the challenges facing students is closer to home: authenticity in the age of artificial intelligence. This led him to craft a rubric for the MATL program around the qualities he believes technology can’t replicate. The rubric challenges students to demonstrate how they think, discern, apply and grow. While Heitman believes AI can be a valuable tool for research and efficiency, he insists authentic leadership begins and ends with human insight, ethical reasoning and lived experience. “I call it an AI sandwich,” he said. “It starts with human inquiry, AI accelerates it, then humans fill in the gaps. We train students to use AI, but in an iterative way.”
Whether he is redesigning courses, mentoring graduate students, leading church workshops, or helping freshmen discover their place in the world, his purpose remains the same. In an era defined by cultural uncertainty, Heitman believes the greatest need is not for smarter leaders, but for wiser ones. Leaders who can transform the people and communities around them. For him, that work makes returning to Jessup each fall feel less routine and more like a calling renewed.
