08/05/2025

2025 APA-IL Leadership Scholarship Winners

Congratulations to APA-IL's 2025 Leadership Scholarship winners: Jaemi Jackson, AICP and Brandon Nolin, AICP. Click here to read through their MLI experiences (or scroll down).

If the APA-IL offers scholarships again in 2026, an announcement will be made after the 2026 budget is passed at the November APA-IL Executive Committee meeting. Stay tuned.

The APA-IL supports the planning pipeline and this scholarship supports that objective. Many planning organizations in Illinois are struggling to attract talent at senior levels. This leadership training strengthens the pool of urban planning professionals in the State.

Reflections on the Midwest Leadership Institute Experience

By Jaemi Jackson, AICP

Attending the Midwest Leadership Institute (MLI) enhanced my ability to lead, manage, and serve in local government. MLI challenged me to reflect critically on how I show up as a leader. Through a mix of data- and research-based lectures, real-world case studies, and candid peer discussions, I gained valuable insight into how my communication style, decision-making process, and conflict response influence my effectiveness. The sessions challenged me to examine my leadership style, decision-making processes, and communication habits with a critical lens.

MLI brings together professionals from across all departments in local government, creating a dynamic and diverse environment of learning and shared experience. The breadth of perspectives enriched the experience and reminded me how interconnected our roles are in serving our communities. I gained insights from others who were facing similar challenges, whether it was managing change, navigating staff conflict, or building alignment with elected officials. These conversations provided reassurance, fresh strategies, and a sense of solidarity and reinforced the importance of alignment and mutual respect across departments.

For any urban planner looking to grow into a stronger, more intentional leader, whether you're managing staff, guiding long-range plans, or facilitating public engagement, the Midwest Leadership Institute is an opportunity to view leadership from a new perspective, and provide valuable tools that touch upon judgement, emotions, power, and accountability. I highly recommend it to anyone in local government who wants to grow not only as a manager but as a thoughtful, adaptive leader committed to public service.

My Midwest Leadership Institute Experience

By Brandon Nolin, AICP

MLI allowed me the opportunity to engage and learn alongside leaders from other public sector organizations. It was refreshing to learn that I am not alone in my professional development trials and tribulations and everyone has some aspect of their leadership skills they need to work at.

The MLI instructors use their decades of experience to ground what might otherwise be very abstract material. The seminar uses a combination of presentations and small group discussions that teaches you concepts and then allows valuable time for introspection. I found the small groups particularly helpful, hearing from others how a certain leadership concept played out in the real world and sharing professional struggles and positive outcomes.

The greatest value I saw in MLI was taking the time to self-diagnose leadership strengths and weaknesses, name them, and identify the best strategies from the MLI mental toolkit for self-improvement moving forward. For example, I know I can rush through tasks and communications sometimes in an effort to be responsive. MLI helped me better understand that of myself and provided a structure to ensure that I properly distill problems down and take the time needed to respond thoughtfully. I find myself looking to act too quickly sometimes, but have greater perspective and have learned to dedicate more time to diagnose the issue at hand, collect needed information, and boil things down before acting. Yes, I still fire off a hasty email now and then, but there is no shame in being a work in progress, ha ha.

MLI also preaches the value of emotional intelligence and frames emotions as another data input to consider in your decision-making. I’ve always had an open door, but MLI helped me to better my focus on the people that walk through that door.

Finally, I’d like to note that the APA-IL scholarship also enabled me to participate in the Assessment of Judgment and Insight for Leadership (AJIL) process and review the findings in a one-on-one with an MLI instructor. That tool helped affirm areas I know I need to work on or be cognizant of, but also highlighted aspects of my leadership personality I didn’t fully appreciate. The AJIL tool added great value to the experience and I am grateful to APA-IL for the opportunity.

Questions?

Please email Paula Freeze with any questions about the Leadership Scholarship or the Midwest Leadership Institute.

MLI is a week long seminar to enhance leadership skills and further personal growth headed by former city administrators David Limardi and Bob Kiley in collaboration with organizational psychologists Dr. David Morrison and Dr. Daven Morrison. Each day began with lectures on leading in today’s complex environment, emphasizing sound judgment, authority and influence, ethics, managing emotions, and working towards a work-family-self balance. Breakout sessions in small groups complemented the lectures. In additional to the 2025 tuition ($3,000) the APA-IL scholarship also covered the leadership analytics assessment, AJIL® - Assessing Judgment and Insight in Leadership ($475).