Sloane Morrow | News Co-Editor
This fall, the Office of Student Activities and Leadership Development is offering a pilot program for Buena Vista University (BVU) students called the Leadership Certificate Program. The program will offer students a structure for personalizing their college experience so that they can become strong leaders and engaged citizens throughout their communities and beyond.
Becka Neary-DeLaPorte, Director of Student Activities and Leadership Development said, “It is an opportunity to help students select involvement opportunities that will build on upon each other and give them different experiences. The Leadership Program is a campus and community-wide effort that will incorporate curricular and co-curricular learning. This learning is built on three core pillars: stewardship, global perspectives, and integrity.
The stewardship pillar will incorporate principles such as citizenship and community service while helping students learn how to address social issues and how to become a productive volunteer. The global perspectives pillar is geared towards preparing students to live in a global economy and also addresses the challenges that the 21st century poses. The integrity pillar teaches students values based on leadership while also gaining knowledge of ethical and honest decision making. Each pillar will include 12 different experiences that will be broken up into three different categories; low impact, high impact, and reflection. Students will be able to choose any combination of these three to meet their 12 experience requirement.
A low impact experience would be something like attending a cultural ACES event, while a high impact experience would be being a site leader on an AWOL trip. Reflecting on either of these through journaling of some type would also count as a separate experience. Students may also reflect on past experiences that can ultimately count in their total number of experiences but the experience itself will not count. Students are also given the opportunity to create their own experience by getting approval from the Office of Student Activities and Leadership Development.
Students will begin the program by attending Leadership Orientation. Orientation occurs in a large group setting and is designed to help students assess their leadership through learning different leadership theories and approaches. Students will also be assigned a staff member or professor who will become their mentor. These mentors will guide the students along each pillar and help them come up with experiences that will be both engaging and beneficial. On top of this, students will be meeting as a large group for the first meeting but will then branch out into cohort groups based on what pillar they are completing.
The cohort groups will meet once a month and will discuss their involvement, leadership, and life. However, for the purpose of the pilot program, all students invited will be in the same cohort. Having students who are completing different pillars in the group will aid in the conversation and will guide the students’ interest in completion and navigation through each pillar. These groups will be peer led along with necessary facilitation from staff. Once the program is up and running on its own, students who have completed the program will become the leaders of the group discussions.
Students will be able to choose pillars accordingly and do not have to complete all three. They may choose to complete just one or two and be recognized but if they complete all three there is an added benefit. “They will receive a certificate that will advance some of maybe there career goals, their resume will look a little better and they will be able to articulate exactly what they did at BV through leadership,” Neary-DeLaPorte said.
20 students have already been preselected for the pilot group and will be the first to see how the program works and will aid in making the program better for future years.
“It is not a perfect student right now so we needed students who would be okay with that. We also wanted to pick students who were first and second year primarily because that way they could continue on and the end goal is for those that have been in the program to lead discussions and do most of the peer-to-peer group meetings.”
Selected students are excited and have high hopes for what the program will bring.
“Being selected to the Leadership Certificate Program is both an honor and a privilege for me as I enter my second year at Buena Vista University. With the help of the Pillars that stand as the foundation of the program, I will improve my leadership skills and become more focused on using a variety of perspectives to interrupt the world,” Sophomore Joseph Hindman said.
Although these students were selected without going through an application process due to the pilot program, interested students for future years will be required to submit an application, resume, and a letter of interest. From there, they must attend each of the group and mentor meetings and complete each of their experiences. At the end of completion students must identify a passion and create a vision and action plan to help share their passion with the campus community.
