Fall Leadership Summit

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SESSION 1

Strengths Quest for Beginners (Sessions 1 & 2)
(Advance sign-up required. Sign-up is restricted to 20 students and will begin on October 3.
Presented by Cheryl Stephens, Associate Director of Residential Life, & Poli Rijos, Health Educator
> Click here to sign-up for Strengths Quest for Beginners

Now that you've taken StrengthsQuest...are you interested in learning more about your talents and how to make them stronger? In this interactive session, you will learn to recognize your five signature strengths and how to use them in many areas of your life.

The overall program objectives include:

Encourage students' awareness of their personal strengths potential.
Help students approach all aspects of student achievement from a strengths-based perspective.
Increase student involvement through a strengths-based campus leadership philosophy.
Enable students to create an action-based strategic plan to use their greatest talents to build strengths.

FISH! Philosophy
Motivate and Encourage Your Team and Have Fun Doing It!
Presented by Brittany Perez, Class of 2009, Vice President of Student Union

Does your student group or organization need a new lease on life? Have things begun to get stale? Are meetings and event preparation boring? Do you need some help focusing on your organization's mission? This session will utilize the highly popular FISH! Philosophy to breathe life back into your organization and have them focus on members' needs-all while having a good time.

Controversy with Civility-A Model of Leadership
Presented by Stephanie Kurtzman, Director of the Community Service Office and Associate Director of the Gephardt Institute of Public Service, Sarah Tillery, Coordinator of Community Service, & Michael Brown, Coordinator of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Student Involvement & Leadership

Using the recent campus-wide blood drive (9/11/2007) at Washington University as our case study, this workshop will explore how the Community Service Office and the Coordinator for LGBT Student Involvement and Leadership worked together to negotiate the complicated issue of the lifetime deferral on blood donations from men who have sex with other men. This program will give an overview of the historical and contextual forces that influenced our response. In describing how we established and generated a campus conversation about the blood drive and its relation to federal policy, participants will gain a sense of how potential controversies can be dealt with in a manner that is respectful and civil.

Bringing Your Vision to Reality
Presented by Carlos Livingston, Class of 2008, Office of Orientation

Two years ago I transferred to Washington University and experienced a difficult transition academically and socially. I felt this was due in part to Orientation not helping me adjust to a new environment. A year ago I decided to act and changed, in a big way, spring and fall transfer student orientation. This program will focus on the steps one takes in bringing their vision of change to reality. Topics include building relationships with the appropriate people, e-mail etiquette, perseverance through difficult times, and running an efficient meeting.

Finding Balance: Tips for Living a Full Life
Presented by Amy Chen, Class of 2008, President of SHAC

The content of this workshop includes a short presentation about the 5 dimensions of health and well-being, followed by a group discussion, and finally an exercise designed to increase awareness of your current state of balance vs. where you would like to be.

Gimme More!
Presented by Dave Brodell & Yogitha Potini, Class of 2009, Office of Orientation

Description coming soon!

SESSION 2

The overall program objectives include:

Encourage students' awareness of their personal strengths potential.
Help students approach all aspects of student achievement from a strengths-based perspective.
Increase student involvement through a strengths-based campus leadership philosophy.
Enable students to create an action-based strategic plan to use their greatest talents to build strengths.

Using Strengths Quest in Your Career Search
Presented by Michael Chapin, Career Development Specialist

Now that you have identified your personal strengths through SQ, how can you utilize them in your career search? Companies and organizations are focusing on recruiting top talent from schools like Washington University. Students need to be able to know what their strengths are and how they can apply them to the company's or organization's needs. Learn to talk about and market your strengths in a way that will help you land a great opportunity.

Resisting Assimilation: The Contrarian's Guide to Leadership
Presented by Michael Brown, Coordinator of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Student Involvement & Leadership

What is good leadership? Can good leaders exist in a space that counters the dominant culture? Why do so many received notions of leadership-that is common sense ideas about what makes a leader- seem wrong? This interactive workshop focuses on critiquing and deconstructing received notions of ‘what is a leader'. Through challenging dominant narratives of leadership participants will gain insight into how popular leadership ideologies promote dominant cultural behaviors like sexism, racism, homophobia, and the exclusion of people with disabilities. We'll also have fun. Trust me.

Ethical Leadership
Presented by Ryan Jasen Henne, Director of Greek Life

This session will help participants identify their core values, apply those values to important decisions, and live their values at home, inside and outside of the classroom, and in the community. The goal of this presentation is to help promote an inner life of integrity, which shapes individual behavior and enables people to work together for the common good. Many of the examples will come from experiences of working with fraternities and sororities, living the ritual, and taking responsibility for commitments made to the greater organization.

The Social Change Model of Leadership Development
Presented by Stephanie Kurtzman, Director of the Community Service Office and Associate Director of the Gephardt Institute for Public Service

This discussion-based session will provide students with a framework for exploring their role as leaders, the effectiveness of groups they participate in, and their goals for future growth.

Cultural Perspectives on Leadership (panel of International students)
Leadership. Does One-Size-Fit-All?
Presented by Martha Turner, Associate Director of the Office for International Students and Scholars and Panel of International Students

What are the traits and skills of a leader? Is there a universal definition of a leader of does it vary from culture to culture? Examine cultural views of leadership through the eyes of international students. Put leadership in a cultural context.

Diversity in Leadership
Presented by Ayesha Saied, Class of 2009, Student Coordinator for Diversity and Multicultural Education in the Office of Student Activities

Diversity and leadership go hand in hand. Explore how you deal with diversity in your daily life and how an understanding of diversity can make you a more effective team member and leader! This session will include a diversity development workshop with activities to get you thinking about how you define diversity and to show you how honoring people's differences will lead to a more successful leadership experience.

KEYNOTE

Melanie A. Adams
Melanie Adams is the Managing Director for Community Education and Events for the Missouri Historical Society. Her professional career includes working in student affairs at the University of California-Berkeley, California State University-Northridge, and Washington University. After leaving higher education she served as executive director of Teach For America-St. Louis, and as a consultant for the St. Louis Symphony and the St. Louis Public Schools Foundation.

Ms. Adams participates in a variety of community organizations. She is the secretary of FOCUS ST. Louis, an organization dedicated to leadership development, community engagement, and policy initiatives. She is a graduate of the Women in Leadership Program of CORO and the Leadership St. Louis program of FOCUS St. Louis. She is also a former president of Metropolis St. Louis and has served on the Americorps St. Louis board. She currently serves on the Special Administrative Board of the St. Louis Public Schools and on the boards of the Professional Organization of Women, the Black Leadership Roundtable, and the St. Louis Community College Foundation.

Ms. Adams earned a bachelor's degree in English/African American studies from the University of Virginia and a Master of Education degree in Higher Education and Student Affairs Administration from the University of Vermont.