Enrique (Rick) C. Orlina MPES Cohort 1, Multidisciplinary Program in Education Sciences Ph.D. Candidate, Distributed Leadership Study Annenberg Hall Room 318 2120 Campus Drive Evanston, IL 60208-0001

Rick Orlina is a second-year student in the Learning Sciences program. Rick has always been interested in education but took a rather unique path to arrive at SESP. After receiving his BA in Physics/Integrated Science Program from Northwestern in 1988, Rick joined Sony Electronics to work in the consumer electronics industry. He held positions in product design and manufacturing in both Japan and the United States. Driven by a desire to better understand the overall operations of the business, Rick returned to school and received his MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business in 1997. He returned briefly to Sony and then joined Sun Microsystems as a manager in the operating systems marketing organization. Rick came back to Northwestern in 2003 with the goal of applying his technology and business experience in the field of education. His current research interests include understanding how schools operate as organizations within broader institutional contexts, and how individuals in school settings take on and enact leadership roles. Rick has been working with Penelope Peterson and James Spillane to develop materials based on the Distributed Leadership perspective for the Educational Leadership Collaboratory project.

View Enrique Orlina's CV.

LOC 351

Modeling Organizations This course begins with the premise that we are all modelers, in the sense that we construct explanations in our heads to simplify situations in which we want to answer a question. These may be personal questions -- such as, "What major should I pursue?" or "Is this the right summer internship for me?" They also may be questions about organizations -- such as, "Should we change the company's employee compensation policy?" When we observe organizations, gather information, draw inferences, and attempt to predict future outcomes, we are engaged in a process of informal modeling.  This course will cover why and how you might convert such informal models and intuitions into more tangible, formal models you can 'run,' explore, or perhaps use to try to change some small corner of the world.