TFLT 2002 - Learning to Lead

Learning to LEAD
UCF encourages lifelong leadership

By Catherine Smith

Ten years ago, the University of Central Florida began a voyage of guiding scholarly students through the first two years of college by focusing on one of the most important qualities they could acquire—leadership.

UCF’s LEAD (Leadership, Enrichment, and Academic Development) Scholars Program helps students become leaders at school, communities, and throughout the rest of their lives. With concentration on leadership enhancement, academic excellence, and community service, LEAD models a simple yet powerful vision—“To Learn, To Lead, To Serve. “The intent is to develop student leaders on campus and connect them with the UCF and Central Florida community while helping them successfully transition through their higher education experience,” says Jan Lloyd, LEAD associate director.

New LEADers
Each year, first year students arrive nervous and unsure of themselves. LEAD understands this and therefore lets 315 incoming freshmen with similar goals and values work together every fall. “LEAD has provided a network of friends and mentors that I never imagined,” says Vanessa Bowman, co-executive director. “Instead of going away to school knowing hardly anyone, I came to UCF with 300 new friends.”

Bowman is just one of the many student who have an advantage over other incoming freshmen in the aspect that they began their transitions prior to their first semesters at UCF. “I came to UCF as an out-of-state student, living off-campus, and not knowing anyone,” says Ashley Ramsey, a second-year LEAD Scholar. “LEAD really helped me to feel like I have a place where I belong; it was like an automatic community of people,” she says.

The two programs overlapping with LEAD are the LIFT (Leaders Involved For Tomorrow) Summit Leadership Conference and the REEL (Residentially Enhanced Experiential Leadership) Retreat. It is through these programs that pre-college students meet and bond with other students who have something very valuable in common: leadership attributes.

LIFT, implemented by a LEAD Scholar in 1998, is a four-day leadership conference that brings high school juniors and seniors to UCF and allows them to learn about leadership as a group and also exposes them to “each others’ different styles of leadership,” says Philip Shibly, co-executive director. The summit is solely run and coordinated by students in LEAD, which not only allows for LEAD Scholars to demonstrate and enhance their leadership capabilities but it also functions as a role model type-cast.

The other program impacting UCF-bound students is the REEL Retreat, which is only in its second year of gathering incoming LEAD Scholars and taking them to an off-campus retreat center in attempts to build a community of leaders. REEL started last year by allowing only 60 students who were assigned to LEAD housing on-campus to attend the multi-purpose retreat, but the program was expanded for the fall of 2002 to include off-campus students, and two sessions with 80 students in each will also be added. “I was able to meet 60 other students in the same shoes I was in and got to spend three days with them,” says Valerie Kielmovitch, a second-year LEAD Scholar. “The leadership games were informative and educational, but we still had time to get to know each other throughout the days,” she says.

LEAD housing is another option for students interested in immersing themselves with fellow LEAD Scholars. Identical to other on-campus dormitories with double occupancy rooms, LEAD housing designates a building for LEAD Scholars exclusively. “I chose LEAD housing because I wanted to be surrounded by outgoing people who wanted to help and give back to the world,” says second-year LEAD Scholar Elizabeth Hendrix.

LEADership classes
Along with activities, excursions, and community service, students in the program advance through a series of academically progressive classes, with each student starting at the introductory level and proceeding to the advanced stage. “Any kind of development is progressive, and leadership development should be the same way,” says William Faulkner, director of LEAD and UCF’s student leadership programs. “Each semester builds on the one before it.”

LEAD courses taught at UCF are a vital part of the program. Following a newly restructured progressive format, LEAD Scholars take a two-credit-hour leadership course each semester, starting with Introductory to Leadership class, then onto more advanced and specialized courses.

The Intermediate Leadership course, with one available in each of the five academic colleges, is the next step to climbing the ladder of leadership. LEAD incorporates faculty members from different areas at UCF into the curriculum, allowing for students to be exposed to a variety of professors teaching leadership. “I absolutely loved those classes—they challenged me to think outside of the box, be creative, acknowledge my weaknesses, use my strengths, and encouraged me to work with others,” says Sarah Kureshi, who graduated from LEAD in 1998 and is now a first-year medical student at Mayo Medical School in Minnesota.

“We learned a lot about leadership and personality styles, which helped us to better understand how we wan work with other types,” Ramsey says. “The class also helped me to get a clear idea of what I saw as my place in LEAD and helped me get involved in the program,” she says of her course in the College of Health and Public Affairs.

Next in the series of Foundations of Leadership courses is the Advanced Leadership course, which is a more specialized class for second-year LEAD Scholars concentrating on community leadership and connections.

The final component is a practicum. “Their second year is more experiential and hands-on, and we’re expecting them to go beyond the classroom experience,” Lloyd says. A variety of practicums are offered to students, including the Keystone experience, Service Learning course, Student Ambassador, LEAD START (Students Teaching And Role-modeling Teamwork), LEAD FLIGHT (Facilitating Leadership In Guiding High school Teams), Spiritual Leadership, Women’s Studies, and the Mentor Academy.

The LEAD START practicum enables LEAD Scholars to work in conjunction with local elementary schools, allowing fifth-grade classes to be taught basic leadership concepts by the partnered practicum students. Education major Christina Canfield participated in START and says, “This was a great step in helping me know that education is where my heart is.” Canfield and her partner Nissa Papienski didn’t want to follow the optional training material and packets and decided to take an alternate route in teaching leadership to their students. “Our kids made baskets with homemade items for their pen pals at the Chambrel Retirement Community in Longwood. The baskets included table decorations made out of baby food jars, quote books, name tags, door hangers, games, and more,” she says. The fifth-graders had to employ their newly developed leadership skills to create and implement the projects.

The Keystone practicum takes groups of two to three LEAD Scholars, has them identify an issue on campus or in the Orlando community and then utilize available resources to solve the problem. Keystone students must rely on the leadership skills and qualities they have acquired up to that point through LEAD. In the spring semester of 2002, a group of Keystone students decided to undertake the task of facilitating pedestrian traffic that had increased due to the new Recreation and Wellness Center being built on-campus. They brainstormed solutions to the problem, which included building a bridge or walkway. Instead, “they developed and worked with the vice president for administration and finance in regards to transportation on-campus overall rather than just that one particular area,” Lloyd says. Some type of transportation or shuttle service for on-campus housing to off-campus housing is currently being addressed.

The Mentor Academy is more competitive than the other practicums because of its “greater impact on the incoming group of students,” Lloyd says. After taking a course that teaches the mentors on coaching and guiding others, each second-year student is assigned to ten first-year LEAD Scholars. “Basically, each mentor has students whom they take under their wing, and show them everything there is to know about LEAD, college, and adjusting away from home in general,” says Meredith Hein, second-year LEAD Scholar.

Volunteering LEADers
Community service, offered through the program and in conjunction with other organizations, is another powerful component of LEAD. While a minimum of 10 hours of volunteer work is required, 60 percent of LEAD Scholars obtain more. During the 2001-02 school year, LEAD Scholars completed 14,855 service hours, which averages to about 47 hours per student.

“Community service has encompassed everything I do, including how I want to use my medical degree in the future,” says Kureshi. As director of the ‘Service Team’ in LEAD, Kureshi was in charge of organizing service projects for 200 LEAD Scholars.

LEAD Scholars say that they grow as individuals through the volunteer work they do with LEAD. “LEAD has provided me with a new outlook on many situations in my life,” says Hein, who worked with the Humane Society and was able to raise more than $300 with the help of her teammates. “My eyes have been opened to many service projects that I never knew existed outside of school,” says Hendrix, who worked with Give Kids the World and the American Cancer Society.

Where hard work LEADs
The assistantship program developed for LEAD has proven to be an extremely beneficial perk to many of its participants. Through this program, students are placed in paid positions working with faculty members from their colleges or serving as undergraduate research aids for a semester. “It’s a good opportunity for students to be connected with the faculty on campus and to begin learning their field of discipline,” Lloyd says.

LEAD partners with the financial aid office and the work-study program at UCF to provide funding for the assistantships. Because the students receive a paycheck and the faculty members don’t have to pay for the assistants, there is great demand from both sides.

Students have also enjoyed other rewards from the assistantship program, including employment for students in their assistantship departments for the remainder of their college years, co-published articles and books with the faculty and students, national and international conference attendance by the students, and fellowship acceptance. “It grows into a very strong commitment through the faculty and the students who want to continue,” Lloyd says.

During and following their participation in LEAD, many students have obtained leadership roles in other campus groups, clubs, and organizations. In a survey conducted in the spring of 2002, 52 percent of LEAD Scholars said they were in leadership positions on campus, and 94 percent were involved in at least one organization other than LEAD. “Each and every organization that I’ve become involved in on campus is somewhat related to my membership in LEAD through networking,” says Lauren Creegan, who graduated LEAD in spring 2002.

Many LEAD Scholars stress that the hardworking and dedicated staff of LEAD are truly the ones who made their time in the program enjoyable. “The directors were so nice and friendly; anytime you wanted to talk or just visit them, they were more than willing to help or socialize,” says Kielmovitch. Cooper views the LEAD staff as part of her family, and says, “The LEAD office is what I consider my “Cheers.” It is where everyone wants to spend their time and where everyone definitely knows ‘your name.’”

Faulkner says the program teaches a very important lesson: leadership is for life. “They almost have an obligation to be of service not only on-campus but when they graduate,” he says. “This goes far beyond just a two-year program; this is just the beginning of their leadership journey and leadership expectations.” Faulkner thinks many will not realize how immense of an impact LEAD has on its students until after they finish the program or graduate from college. “It goes by so fast and after you realize how much you love it, it’s time to leave,” says Canfield.

LEAD Scholars’ attitudes, skills, and abilities go well beyond those of the average UCF student. “There’s a big difference between interviewing a student and interviewing a LEAD Scholar,” Lloyd says. “When [LEAD Scholars] interview with other areas on-campus, we hear back from those administrators who say that our kids really know what leadership is.”

For more information on UCF’s LEAD Scholars Program, contact Jan Lloyd at (407) 823-2223 or e-mail her a jlloyd@mail.ucf.edu, or visit http://reach.ucf.edu/~lead/.

To LEAD or Not to LEAD...
LEAD Scholars accepts about 50 percent of the applicants who apply for the two-year co-curricular program. Students are targeted to apply once they are accepted to UCF based on their:
• GPA and SAT scores.
• Leadership experiences (clubs and organization involvement, leadership positions held.
• Community service experiences (the length of commitment, diversity with a variety of organizations, number of service hours (if provided)
• Academic excellence (GPA, SAT, and ACT scores, as well as academic preparation opportunities including national honor society, AP, International Baccalaureate programs, and dual enrollments courses).

In addition, students are required to submit an essay regarding a project they have sustained over a period of time and discuss their motivation toward this commitment.