Seton Hill University students are invited to the first-ever SHU20 Summit, a leadership program designed for students to enhance their leadership skills on campus and in the future. The two-day program, April 6-7, will incorporate a range of leadership topics from time management and communication skills to event planning and understanding biases.
The idea to create the SHU20 Summit came from a conversation regarding student leaders benefitting from a thorough training process. “A lot of the clubs and organizations are not functioning to the best of their ability. With the processes and procedures, there is a lot of stuff to know,” said Elise Michaux, direct of student involvement. “We thought that if we created something where we taught everybody those things then more student organizations would be doing more programs because they would understand who to talk to and how to get things done.”
Michaux took it upon herself to develop such an event. Teaming up with Marissa Haynes, coordinator of service outreach, and Kelsey Blahovec, admissions counselor, the three have been meeting since February to plan the summit.
“We are passionate about student leadership and the importance of it and we really just want to see our campus begin to thrive in an even better way,” Michaux said. “We have a lot of student leaders on our campus and I believe that through this program they’ll begin to see that there is so much more to the experience of running clubs and organizations on campus than they are already doing.”
The summit is a two-day training program that will include 50-minute sessions for students to enhance their leadership skills. Sessions will discuss topics that range from broad, like how to effectively run a club, to more campus-specific topics, such as how to utilize OrgSync, a recently introduced tool for clubs and organizations on campus.
“The co-curricular experience is one that complements the academic experience, and so not only do we want to educate you on processes and procedures, but we also want to teach you about leadership and your strengths as a leader on campus,” Michaux said. “We want you to know a little bit more about yourself when you are done, so that is why we have stretched it to two days.”
On Friday, students will participate in a strength’s quest session with Rosalie Carpenter, vice president for student affairs, where they will assess their skills and how to best use them as a student leader. On Saturday, students will dive into three sessions covering a wide range of topics from OrgSync to diversity. The sessions will include ice breakers, a lecture on the topic, an activity and an assessment for students to get the most out of the knowledge they have gained.
At the end of the summit, students will graduate and receive a pin and recognition for participating. “Our hope with this is to have it every year and there will be a track for students to participate. For example, if you participate this year you will get a silver pin, and next year a gold pin,” Michaux said. “We will just continue to make it fresh for people who already know what we will be teaching and we’ll just build upon it.”
Any student interested in developing their leadership skills is encouraged to sign up for the summit. The deadline to register for the SHU20 Summit is March 28. The form can be found on OrgSync. For any questions on the summit, contact Elise Michaux at emichaux@setonhill.edu.
“I’d love to see more clubs and organizations having programming on campus and I believe because they don’t exactly know how do it that they don’t do it,” Michaux said. “This is meant to encourage, inspire and educate our student population all that it takes to put on a good program on campus.”
Published By: Callista Arida