Student Leadership Institute - Winter Conference

An opportunity to develop the leader in you

WINTER LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE 2005: Leadership. You. Now.

In October 2004, the student leadership planning committee once again began planning for DePaul's annual winter leadership conference. Once again, an "institute-based" leadership experience with a leadership text at the core of the curriculum was agreed upon. And, the committee felt strongly that the focus of the conference should be on helping students understand how this year's theme ("Leadership. You. Now.") truly is a reflection of how they can effect positive, social change … now!

After much time and consideration, the text selected for the curriculum was based on the leadership model A Social Change Model of Leadership Development (Higher Education Research Institute, 1996). Prior to the conference, students were required to read an article written for About Campus magazine by Helen S. Astin - "Leadership for Social Change" (July-August, 1996).

The values identified for this year's conference focused on student leadership development from three different perspectives; The Individual, The Group, and The Community/Society. Most importantly, this perspective emphasizes the relational aspects of 7 values of leadership and maintains the goal of leadership should be some kind of social change that helps your institution or community.

Throughout the weekend, students actively engaged in a variety of large group immersion exercises and small team meetings that required them to act, reflect on, and discuss these values. To conclude the conference, a final group project required each team of students' to take a practical approach towards social change by selecting 1-2 current campus issues that they would like to see change, creating a plan for action for change, and presenting this plan to the entire conference community. Upon our return to campus, a summary of each of the group's "Inspired Annoyance" project was presented to the entire Division of Student Affairs.

Due to the positive addition of Peer Facilitators to the WLC 2004, a larger number of Peer Facilitators were selected and trained for this year's conference. This core group of 20 students facilitated small-group team building exercises, small-group leadership and diversity exercises, and led group discussions. Additionally, two student affairs educators were trained to be Core Facilitators for the weekend. Their responsibilities included facilitating and processing large group immersion exercises.

Based on our evaluations, the WLC 2005 proved to be another success!

95% of conference participants strongly believed the values chosen for the conference were important to their development as a leader;
91% of conference participants believed the conference added to their personal development;
97% of conference participants agreed that the facilitators created a positive learning environment during individual team sessions, while 96% believed the presence of a peer facilitator added to the group process; and
94% of students would recommend this type of conference experience to another student!

A special thank you must go out to all of the departments that helped out with this year's leadership conference: Student Life, Residential Education, Campus Recreation, Diversity Education, Office of Academic Enhancement, and Multicultural Student Affairs. Also, a HUGE thank you must go out to our Peer Facilitators and student planning committee!

In total, one hundred and thirty one undergraduate student leaders participated in this year's conference - Leadership. You. Now.