Emerging Leaders, a development program designed to teach students new leadership skills, has selected thirty-three first-year students to join the program.
The program, an arm of the Leadership Consultant Council, brings first-years together for weekly meetings to learn and discuss important parts of leadership.
Cristin Lavelle, a sophomore Spanish and history major, serves on the LCC Advisory Board and is the Emerging Leader programming coordinator.
“The application process is selective, and the programs are designed to actually teach students new leadership skills, not just go over the ones they have already displayed,” Lavelle said.
Lavelle explained that both campus and community leaders come to the weekly meetings to discuss practical applications of certain topics and to teach students how they can utilize these skills.
“Another large aspect of emerging leaders is the mentorship component. Each first-year student is matched with an alumni mentor in the Dallas area and with an upper-class student leader,” Lavelle said. “This mentorship is an important facet of the Emerging Leader program, as the first-year students will learn by example from these mentors.”
New this year, monthly service projects will provide opportunities for emerging leaders to become acclimated to the Dallas community and present service opportunities to them. Student mentors will also come to these activities, in an effort to enhance the relationship with their emerging leader.
Interviews were held all day Saturday to find first-years to participate in the program.
Questions were designed to test the applicants ability to think originally. The last question each interviewee was asked was “If you could break any law or commit a crime, what would it be and why?”
Lavelle said the question was not intended to test morality, but rather to see if they could act quickly and respond creatively.
Responses from first-years ranged from “speeding whenever they wanted” to “trashing the TCU campus.”
First-year and new emerging leader, Brooke Schieb, said this question threw her for a loop.
“I was shocked because I had never thought about this before. I said I would rob a bank, but I didn’t have a good reason for it,” she said.
Schieb is most looking forward to meeting alumni as well as older student leaders around the SMU campus through the program.
First-year English major, Alana Kalantzakis, shares Schieb’s excitement.
“I am really excited about getting to meet people in the business field, and hearing them speak about how they became effective leaders in their profession,” she said.
The new emerging leaders will first meet at an on-campus retreat at Ford Stadium on Friday.