Leadership Institute one of many successes
A CMU 2010 grant to the Leadership Institute is giving students like junior Todd Burlingham opportunities to teach leadership skills to middle and high school students while also preparing for leadership roles in his future career. Burlington teaches weekly sessions on communication, teamwork, and other elements of leadership.
The Leadership Institute received $48,090 for three years to provide customized leadership development programs – on- and off-campus – to K-12 students in Michigan schools.
“Our primary focus is giving back to the community,” said Jenell Barnard, coordinator of K-12 student leadership. “It is our hope that these students will go out and become leaders.”
Burlingham, an integrative public relations major and leadership minor, hopes his experiences in the program will prepare him to one day lead a nonprofit organization that works with students.
One recent Wednesday afternoon, he led a group of 26 restless seventh-graders from Flint in a teamwork exercise requiring listening and cooperation. As the group struggled to succeed, they examined the chaos and confusion that resulted from their lack of teamwork.
Burlingham also made college life seem exciting and accessible to the students, and hands shot up when he asked them who plans to attend college.
The Leadership Institute program uses the talents of about 110 CMU students who have been trained as facilitators. Additional benefits include recruitment of potential students to CMU and the experience that students like Burlingham gain.
“I think I almost take more away from the sessions than the students do,” Burlingham said.
‘Successful harvest of CMU’s priorities’
The leadership program is just one example of a CMU 2010 project under way. Of the university projects that received FY06 funding, two are continuing, and 11 are complete. Twelve projects that received FY07 funding – including the leadership program – are under way, and the three projects that received FY08 funding are already getting started.
“The ‘seed money’ provided through the CMU 2010 Vision Fund has led to the cultivation of a multitude of projects that are contributing to the successful harvest of CMU’s priorities,” said Carole Richardson, director of special projects for academic affairs and 2010 communications committee chairwoman. “The outcomes of these innovative projects are all essential to the institutional transformation that CMU 2010 was designed to stimulate.
“While the great ideas far outnumber the dollars available in the Vision Fund, the deans and other senior administrators have extended their limited budgets to fund additional innovative projects that contribute to the vision,” she said. •
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