The reviews are in, and the College of Arts and Sciences’ new leadership major is getting plenty of praise from recent graduates and current undergrads.

Kethan Mokadam, who grew up in Seattle, Wash. but moved to Columbus and attended The Wellington School for high school, was the first student to graduate with a leadership degree from The Ohio State University College of Arts and Sciences. Introduced in 2024, the major immerses students in the core principles of leadership while allowing them to specialize in one of six pathways: politics and law, leadership in society, business and markets, military and security studies, civil rights, or science and innovation.

With a focus on civil rights and social justice, Mokadam said what he appreciated most about the major’s offerings was the different perspectives portrayed within the coursework.  

“Something I really appreciated about the leadership major was being able to look at social justice, civil rights and women’s and gender studies through a historical and philosophical perspective,” he said. “That is going to be so helpful in my understanding of the world and how all of these systems interact, and in my future career as a clinician.”

Mokadam plans on pairing his leadership degree with a master’s in social work from the University of Denver, focusing on sports. Mokadam played sports in high school, was a student research assistant for LiFEsports at The Ohio State University and was involved in Ohio State of Mind, an a cappella student group. 

Mokadam held multiple positions with Ohio State of Mind. He served as business manager, executive producer and president of the student organization during his time as an undergraduate, giving him plenty of experience in leadership roles. 

At LiFEsports, Mokadam worked with K-12 students, distributing surveys and collecting data at seven sites for over 900 campers, putting the skills he learned in the classroom to work for his internship. He presented his findings at the 2023 Association of Social Workers in Sport annual symposium and had a paper published in the 2024 Sport Social Work Journal.

“That has been such a life-changing experience for me,” Mokadam said of his time with LiFESports at Ohio State. “I was able to study the impact that sports can have on young people throughout childhood.”

Christa Johnson, the assistant director of leadership studies and an associate professor of teaching in the Department of Philosophy, had nothing but positive things to say about Mokadam as the first leadership graduate. 

“The first graduate sets the tone, and Kethan was perfect. He is driven, he is thoughtful, and his capstone project was a labor of love and creativity, drawing lessons for leadership from his own experiences in musical performance,” Johnson said. “Helping students make these surprising connections to leadership is exactly what drove us to develop the major.”

While Mokadam moves on to the next chapter in his academic and professional journey, Chase Skillman is in the middle of his collegiate career. 

Another native of Seattle, Skillman just completed his second year at Ohio State. One of the first students to declare as a leadership major, Skillman is also pursuing a degree in marketing at the Fisher College of Business. 

He chose the leadership major to enhance his business skills: “I thought declaring the leadership major would be a better way to learn holistically what it means to be a leader and let me gear it towards what I was already studying.”

Skillman plans on joining his mother’s real estate business upon graduation and already feels he has accumulated plenty of knowledge he can apply to his postgraduate career when that time comes. 

“When you’re in a position of leadership, you have to have difficult conversations. With buying and selling houses, that's a big thing in someone's life. You’re moving a family into a new home. That's very stressful,” Skillman said. “The leadership major has helped me gain confidence in those situations and how I can approach them.” 

“When you’re in a position of leadership, you have to have difficult conversations. The leadership major has helped me gain confidence in those situations and how I can approach them.” - Chase Skillman '28

Initially, Skillman said he was nervous about the flexibility of class scheduling as a double major but quickly found out how convenient the pairing of the two majors could be. 

“There's a lot of classes that you can carry over from the general education programs,” he said. “The leadership classes themselves have been very eye-opening.”

One such class, the Ethics of Leadership, was mentioned by both Mokadam and Skillman as a course that made an impact on them. Taught by Johnson, the course - and the major overall - can work for any student regardless of their academic focus. 

“What [Kethan and Chase] have in common is an understanding that to accomplish these goals, to excel, they need to do more than learn the trade,” Johnson said. “That’s why they chose to pursue the Arts and Sciences leadership major.”

No matter what a student’s primary focus is, the Arts and Sciences leadership major at Ohio State offers an additional skillset to augment and improve a student’s overall knowledge. 

“Whenever I speak to a student about the major, I see their drive, their curiosity and their desire to set themselves apart,” Johnson said. “Our students don’t just want to get a job, they want to excel in their careers and live full lives.”