• Contact Info

Duren, Ron G, Jr.

Teaching Associate Professor

Positions

Research Areas research areas

Research

keywords

  • Performance psychology, arousal regulation, stress/anxiety/fear

Teaching

courses taught

  • CYBR 5505 - Leading Oneself
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2019
    Provides working engineers a background in leadership concepts and methods and enables students to develop practical leadership skills through numerous in-class exercises and experimentation based assignments. Topics include authentic leadership, motivating self and others, cultivating emotional intelligence, personal mastery, creating accountability, conflict resolution, leading change and organizational culture. Required for all Engineering Management degree students.
  • EMEA 5051 - Leading Oneself with Self-Knowledge
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2022 / Spring 2023 / Summer 2023 / Fall 2023 / Spring 2024
    Before we can lead others well, we must first learn to lead ourselves well. Knowing thyself is the starting point on this journey. In this course, you will come to understand the importance of three forms of awareness, craft a personal identity, gain understanding of how you work best, learn to be strategic with your time and energy and manage cognitive biases and understand your worldview.
  • EMEA 5052 - Leading Oneself with Purpose and Meaning
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2022 / Spring 2023 / Summer 2023 / Fall 2023 / Spring 2024
    Before we can lead others well, we must first learn to lead ourselves well. Knowing your why is an important part of this journey. In this course, you will identify your core purpose and recognize meaning in your life, explore the power of spirituality and embracing our mortality, create a lasting impact by serving a greater good, describe your character and practice personal excellence.
  • EMEA 5053 - Leading Oneself with Personal Excellence
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2022 / Spring 2023 / Summer 2023 / Fall 2023 / Spring 2024
    Before we can lead others well, we must first learn to lead ourselves well. Knowing personal excellence is the culmination of this journey. In this course, you will describe how and why to set goals and create action plans, increase your focus and reduce distraction, harness motivation and flow state for performance, build self-efficacy and agency, and redefine your relationship with stress, anxiety, fear and adversity.
  • EMEA 5064 - The Neuroscience of Personal Excellence
    Primary Instructor - Summer 2023 / Fall 2023 / Spring 2024
    This course examines leadership techniques through the lens of social cognitive neuroscience and psychology. Utilizing the latest research, we develop a leadership practice based on the foundation of neuroscience. Topics include neuroplasticity, regulating arousal, personal performance, flow state, decision-making and learning. This course focuses on personal excellence to lead oneself.
  • EMEA 5065 - The Neuroscience of Leading High-Performance Teams
    Primary Instructor - Summer 2023 / Fall 2023 / Spring 2024
    This course examines leadership techniques through the lens of social cognitive neuroscience and psychology. Utilizing the latest research, we develop a leadership practice based on the foundation of neuroscience. Topics include motivation, storytelling, improv, collaboration, psychological safety, influence, and coaching. This course focuses on leading high-performance teams.
  • EMEA 5066 - The Neuroscience of Leading Transformational Organizations
    Primary Instructor - Summer 2023 / Fall 2023 / Spring 2024
    This course examines leadership techniques through the lens of social cognitive neuroscience and psychology. Utilizing the latest research, we develop a leadership practice based on the foundation of neuroscience. Topics include innovation, creativity, facilitating change, gender and diversity, mental toughness, and explore the neuroscience of business. This course focuses on leading transformational organizations.
  • EMEN 3100 - Introduction to Engineering Management
    Primary Instructor - Spring 2018 / Fall 2018 / Spring 2021
    Examines topics important to the management of engineering activities within organizations. Topics include the relationship of engineering to business and management disciplines, the functions of an engineering manager, principles and techniques for managing financial resource and business ownership. Explores best practices in global engineering management, process management, legal issues, ethics, organizational behavior and communications.
  • EMEN 4030 - Project Management Systems
    Primary Instructor - Spring 2020
    Gain skills in project management best practices that fit any industry, sector or geography. This interactive class provides students with the tools necessary to effectively initiate, plan, execute, control and close any type of project. Students apply knowledge as they plan an actual project, build and execute it, and ensure it meets stakeholder expectations and other project goals.
  • EMEN 4050 - Leadership and Professional Skills
    Primary Instructor - Spring 2018 / Fall 2018 / Spring 2019 / Fall 2019 / Spring 2020 / Spring 2021 / Spring 2022 / Spring 2023
    Accelerate your personal and professional growth with the essential skills required to become an effective leader/manager. Conduct personal development through exercises in communication and leadership effectiveness. Explore leadership styles, managing commitments, change management, negotiation, conflict resolution, organizational culture, emotional intelligence, team dynamics and business ethics.
  • EMEN 5015 - Engineering Communication
    Primary Instructor - Spring 2022 / Spring 2023
    Enables students to communicate their thoughts and ideas in written and oral form in professional environments. Understand and demonstrate the ability to write a correctly-formed document. Develop active listening skills, particularly when providing and receiving feedback. Learn to orally communicate ideas by speaking clearly, persuasively, energetically, and with appropriate non-verbal elements. Present in various environments and to various audiences.
  • EMEN 5050 - Leading Oneself
    Primary Instructor - Spring 2018 / Summer 2018 / Fall 2018 / Spring 2019 / Summer 2019 / Fall 2019 / Spring 2020 / Summer 2020 / Fall 2020 / Spring 2021 / Summer 2021 / Fall 2021 / Spring 2022 / Summer 2022 / Fall 2022 / Spring 2023 / Summer 2023 / Fall 2023 / Spring 2024
    Provides working professionals the framework to build leadership skills by first starting with oneself because the foundation for great leadership starts with personal excellence. Topics include accountability, authentic leadership, personal branding, self-awareness, growth mindset, emotional intelligence, personal mastery, feedback and communication skills.
  • EMEN 5054 - Neuroscience of Leadership
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2023
    Examines leadership techniques through the lens of social cognitive neuroscience and psychology. Utilizing the latest research, we develop a leadership practice based on neuroscience. Consideration for leading oneself, leading others and leading organizations is covered. Topics include neuroplasticity, psychological safety, resililence, mental toughness, primal power of storytelling, improv and creativity, as well as the subtle power of influence.
  • EMEN 5830 - Special Topics
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2020 / Fall 2021 / Fall 2022
    May be repeated up to 9 credit hours.
  • ORGL 5320 - Building and Leading Innovative Work Teams
    Primary Instructor - Summer 2019
    Learn how to build innovative work teams, with a special focus on promoting cohesion among groups that are inclusive and diverse. Students will learn how to diagnosis low-performing groups before they reach the point of failure. The course will also address the use of 'tight-loose' leadership, which controls the process while giving free rein to diverse thinking. Special attention is paid to specific managerial tools, such as brainstorming, the nominal groups technique, devil's advocacy, and dialectical inquiry.
  • TLEN 5050 - Leading Oneself
    Primary Instructor - Spring 2018 / Summer 2018 / Spring 2019 / Summer 2019
    Provides working engineers a background in leadership concepts and methods and enables students to develop practical leadership skills through numerous in-class exercises and experimentation based assignments. Topics include authentic leadership, motivating self and others, cultivating emotional intelligence, personal mastery, creating accountability, conflict resolution, leading change and organizational culture. Required for all Engineering Management degree students.

Background