Couto joined the Ph.D. program as a founding faculty member and Professor of Leadership Studies in July 2002. Prior to that he had been a founding faculty member and Modlin Chair in Leadership Studies at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies of the University of Richmond. At Jepson, he helped integrate classroom instruction with community service and action research. Prior to the University of Richmond, he taught at Tennessee State University in the Institute of Government.
The most formative element of his professional development happened from 1975 to 1988, when he directed Vanderbilt University's Center for Health Services. Its programs uniquely combined community-based, problem-centered education with community organizing and community development in low-income areas of Appalachia and predominantly African-American areas of the rural South. He continues to lecture and write on Appalachian topics; community leadership, development, and political change; and the role of higher education in a scholarship of engagement.His most recent publication, Reflections on Leadership, compiles contributions of leadership scholars about the past and future of the field.
He is currently engaged in programs and research on leadership and global poverty; competency-based leadership development of federal executives; leadership curriculum elements for programs of public policy; models of curriculum and community development integration in different nations; and the relationship of creativity and leadership. He will also head the editorial team preparing SAGE's two-volume reference handbook on political and civic leadership scheduled for publication in 2010.
