Leadership Development
Student Leadership Institutes (SLI's) are designed to build student's professional identity, refine their leadership skills, and provide a ground for student leaders to develop relationships and life skills.
Spring 2018
Spring 2017
Fall 2016
Spring 2016
Fall 2015
Spring 2018
- Telling your Student Involvement Story- This session, led by Sam Stafford, taught students how to tell stories about their student organizations. We were asked about our passions, obstacles, learning moments, and success stories. It was very good preparation for job interviews where students would be asked similar problem-solving questions.
- Women Leader Series: "Why does everyone like her?" - This session explored gender dynamics in the workplace and how women could befriend and support one another to rise together within an organization.
- Catch your Communication- Using the DiSC behavioral profile, I learned about my leadership and communication styles and determined how to improve my interactions with people of different styles.
- Agree or Disagree- This session revolved around dating violence and rape. Students were asked to stand in the middle of the room and for each question asked or statement made, we stepped left (for disagree) or right (for agree). It was interesting to see different takes on different scenarios.
- How to Lead: Extroverts vs Introverts- In this session, Michele Lenhart led a discussion about the differences between introverts and extroverts as both leaders and followers. I learned that as a leader, I often will take information discussed in a meeting and process it later on and think of possible solutions on my own rather than in a group. Once I have processed and come up with my own ideas, I will be ready to discuss with others.
- Become a Star: Student Organization Conference- In this conference, I presented a session on emotional intelligence and how students can apply it in student organizations.
Spring 2017
- Pass the Baton: Mini-Conference- The executive chair of ICAD and I presented at this conference about brainstorming! We held a session teaching other students the value of brainstorming and the process IC After Dark goes through to create events.
- Women Leaders Series: College Women are Stressed Out and Totally Exhausted- College women in the US are the most stressed out demographic;
- Mindful Leadership Principle 1: Challenge assumptions about daily habits to get the right stuff done
- Mindful Leadership Principle 2: Understand how you work best to set your own rhythm
- Mindful Leadership Principle 3: Make time for unconscious thought- make a conscious decision to step back and think
- Mindful Leadership Principle 4: Set boundaries- be strategic with the words, "yes" and "no" - Team Building- In this session with Theresa Johnson, we determined the importance of team building within a student organization. The trust that an executive board needs to function is essential. With trust, people will delegate tasks and things will get done more efficiently.
- Salary Negotiation for Women- We discussed socialization and gender norms. Boys raise their hand more than girls by the first grade. Discrimination becomes more prominent as kids grow up. Women face constant media attention and must deal with the glass ceiling. Pink collar jobs make less and widen the pay gap. A male is the boss, a female is bossy.
Fall 2016
- AMA Etiquette Dinner- At the Etiquette Dinner, a guest speaker came to present on how to best present yourself at a corporate dinner. He established the use for each utensil and plate, covered proper dining etiquette, and provided networking tips.
- Curiousity: Not Why You Want People to Follow You
- Delegate v. Dictate- In this session, Theresa emphasized the differences between delegating work and ordering people to do it. We made lists and comparison charts between people who delegate and dictators and assessed qualities that stood out to us. We also determined how tasks could be assigned to people in our student organizations without coming across like a dictator.
- Securing Stellar Internships
- Event Planning 101- In this leadership institute, we divided into teams to create an event. We were supplied with an object and had to center our event around it. In this particular scenario, my group was given a giraffe and a plastic ball. We used our diverse strengths to devise a plan for a for-profit event called the Madagascar Masquerade. We planned a budget, sponsorships, a run of show, and an internal event summary incorporating games, activities, decorations, catering, etc. Out of the five groups, our group won first place as most innovative event that is most likely to occur on Ithaca College's campus.
- How I Met My Leadership Style
- Student Organization Conference - This conference was very unique as it was olympic themed. When I walked in, I immediately began to decorate a flag for the clubs that I was representing. The conference had an amazing keynote speaker who advised us to get involved on campus as much as we could, because that would indicate future job success. He explained how he had a 1.1 GPA his first semester of college due to the fact that he was over involved. He never regretted a minute of it. He went on to become a teacher, and hoped to inspire students the way that he was inspired. HE WAS SO INSPIRING.
Throughout the day, I attended sessions, including How to Get Members more Involved and How to be a Great Change Leader. They were very informative and taught me how to engage with members more and how to act in times of change. As IABC undergoes change in leadership and re-establishes itself as a club, these were great sessions to attend. - Student Organization Travel- What Do I Need to Know?
Spring 2016
- Making Success a Habit
- Women Leader Series: WomInspiration!- In this student leadership institute, Michelle Lenhart had us speak in small groups about how to inspire women. We discussed how compliments make women hold their heads higher. Ted Talks were shown to inspire us to do anything we set our heart to.
We also made super cute inspiration boxes and filled them with inspiring messages and things we hope to accomplish. At the end of the session, we had time to decorate the boxes. I took an idea from Gilmore Girls, and wrote, "In Omnia Paratus" on my box. This translates from Latin to mean, "Ready for Anything!" I also added an umbrella with rain to inspire myself on the rainy days. - Get it Together - In this leadership session, students formed groups and learned to communicate with each other to accomplish a task. We each took turns looking at a sculpture behind a box and returning to our table to communicate how to build an identical one. After reading "11 Signs You Have the Grit You Need to Succeed," we also reviewed our own personal strengths and weaknesses. I concluded that I have to work at keeping my emotions in check, but that I am very detail oriented and remain focused even when it makes my mind numb.
- Unleashing your Creative Brilliance- In this Student Leadership Institute, students exercised their creativity by creating new games and pretending to be entrepreneurs. In one case, we looked at a water bottle and brainstormed improvements. I came up with a bottom that clipped on and off to make washing water bottles easier! We reviewed the differences between divergent and convergent thinking, and overviewed the SCAMPER (substitute, combine, adapt, magnify/ minimize, put to other uses, eliminate, rearrange) technique. We were also reminded that anybody can be creative, and that there is a difference between creative and artistic.
- Disability- More Than a Label - This Student Leadership presentation, given by student leaders themselves, emphasized the importance of how we connect and interact with those with disabilities. We were told that common terms and phrases, such as "disabled person" and "autistic person," are now politicallly incorrect. Instead, if we must describe somebody with an impairment, we should say "a person who has disabilties." We were reminded that disabilities are a lot more common than we think. Often, the media does not portray people with disabilities as much as they should. A list of famous people with disabilities was then passed around. On this list included people like Jennifer Anniston, Michael Phelps, Da Vinci, Mozart, Bella Thorne, etc.
We also reviewed the laws for equal opporuntinities for those with disabilities. This does not mean that they get preference for the job, but that their criteria should be looked at the same as everybody else's. - Women Leader Series: How Remarkable Women Lead
- Women in Leadership Experience- On March 26th, I had the honor to participate in the Women in Leadership Experience. I did not know what to expect in this conference, but I am so glad that I went. We boarded the bus early in the morning and took off to Seneca Falls. On the bus, we researched women who made a difference. I chose Emmaline Pankhurst because she participated in the women’s activism and suffrage movements in England. She strived to get the media’s attention by helping with the force feeding hunger strikes and jumping in front of horses on the King’s race tracks. She helped create a lot of martyrs for the cause. Once we got to the Women’s National Historic Park, we sat in on a lecture about the starts of the suffrage movement and history of the phenomenal women, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B Anthony. Students then had free time to explore the museum, which featured an exhibit in which women let go of their “sorries” and an exhibit that compared women’s pay to men’s pay.
Later, we went over to the Gould Hotel and ate lunch, had a question and answer panel with two inspiring women, and networked with other students by sharing our own personal experiences. On the panel, Dr. Nia was easily the most inspiring woman I’ve ever met. She shared her ideas on the importance of education and related it to her passions in activism. She inspired me to take one of her classes next semester because she is so passionate and I love hearing what she has to say. She challenges the norms and is not afraid to stand up for whatever it is that she believes in. The entire experience was very valuable and reminded me to find what I am passionate about and run with it. - Women Leader Series: Exploring Feminism in the Modern American Sitcom- n this student leadership institute, we discussed sexism and feminism in modern American sitcoms. The focus was on 2 Broke Girls, The Mindy Project, and New Girl. We talked about topics such as women breast feeding in public, women walking alone at night, men sexualizing women in the workplace and in bars and on the streets, etc. The SLI was very informational and I definitely left more aware of sexism in the media.
Fall 2015
- BOLD Conference
- Student Organization Trivia
- Be Bold!
- How Do You Learn Best? Discovering V.A.R.K. and more