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Promoting civic engagement
Students from Leadership House were among the UB contingent taking the “Polar Plunge” last weekend. Photo: STEVE MORSE
Some wanted to run in the Relay for Life to help fight cancer. Others raked leaves and cleared overgrown backyards in University Heights. Last Saturday, some brave souls even took the “Polar Plunge” and dove half-naked into the icy waters of Lake Erie to support the Special Olympics.
Each fall, about 30 civic-minded UB freshmen become members of Leadership House, a unique, yearlong, “living learning” program that develops budding entrepreneurs, teachers, CEOs, political activists and other community leaders. Incoming freshmen apply to the program before they begin classes in September. Once accepted, they are grouped together in the same residence hall, take special academic classes and participate in local and national community service events.
The Leadership House (LH) program includes a required course in the fall called “Dynamics of Leadership,” and members also must participate in several pre-planned service events of their choosing. One popular example was Trick or Eat, a nationwide Halloween food drive that gets students off campus and into their local neighborhoods to ask for food donations instead of candy. In the spring, LH members apply the skills and experiences they collected in the fall and organize a major campus service event.
“I have learned through the class that not only is it important to be a leader, but that ‘followership’ is also very important,” says LH member Maureen “Mo” McCusker, who says Trick or Eat was her favorite event this semester. “A leader without followers can’t lead.”
McCusker is finishing her fall semester with Leadership House. She says the living experience, which this year began with a leadership retreat in September and then continued in Dewey Hall on the North Campus, gave her a chance to develop a tightly knit group of peers before the semester even began. “We have become like a family and are pretty close,” she says. “It is nice to have that kind of friendship on such a big campus.”
McCusker learned about the program from a UB mailing, and says she also checked it out online before applying. “Coming from a small town, I was used to being involved in a lot of community service projects and I wanted to continue that at school,” she says.
Jude Butch, director of Leadership House and class instructor, leads students in discussions of weekly leadership topics. Students, he says, are encouraged to note examples of leadership they witness in their daily lives and start to form a personal philosophy about what leading means to them.
Butch came from George Mason University last summer to become director of the UB program, which is run through the Office of Leadership and Community Engagement (LCE) in Student Affairs. He says he didn’t want to change much in the 12-year-old program, but he did make some enhancements to the mentorship program, adding a point system this fall to provide incentives for student participation in community events. If LH students attend events outside their curriculum, they accrue points. For example, if you attend an open house, get three points. Help clean up local parks at a Saturdays of Service event—get another three points.
Butch adds that total points also are considered when his office selects LH mentors, a group of upperclassmen who help counsel freshmen participants in everything from studying for exams to romantic relationships and landing internships. Top point-getters who demonstrate their commitment to leadership and community engagement through four years of college will be recognized at commencement.
Sarah Norton, a sophomore majoring in exercise science and nutrition, is a mentor who participated in last year’s Leadership House and has helped organize Stay Up UB—an all-night charity dance marathon—and the university’s Polar Plunge team. “I can help mentees get involved and direct them to organizations that target their interests,” Norton says. The goal, she adds, is for mentors to interact with all LH students, but oversee several freshmen more closely (she was assigned to four).
Nick Salerno, a sophomore and LH alumnus studying pharmaceutical sciences, juggles classes with organizing Saturdays of Service events, giving basic leadership courses through the LCE office, and his duties as an LH resident assistant in Dewey Hall. He says the program has shown him how many different kinds of leadership styles there are. “You’re not born a leader; it’s a learned behavior,” he says.
Salerno says Leadership House gave him many opportunities to get involved and sharpened his skills in public speaking and mediation. He agrees with Norton that the mentoring he does through his RA duties and teaching has strengthened his own skills, from public speaking to mediating disputes on the dormitory floor. “There are always conflicts when you have groups of people living and working together, but this has been a great group of students this year,” he says. “I’ve learned as much about leadership from them as they’ve learned from me.”
For the first time next spring, the LH class will attend a second retreat, which focuses on team building and leadership development, and, Butch says, will give the group valuable time together outside of class. He also will lead participants in a new, one-credit leadership course, “UB 496.” Its curriculum will look at local, national and international events through a leadership lens. “We’ve focused these courses academically, but we want them to be fun to teach and to take, too,” he says.
According to Norton and Butch, most LH students are self-motivated coming into the program, and quickly sign up on their own for such events as UB Getting Dirty or Pride and Service Day, two on-campus cleanup events. “It’s a great launching pad to explore UB service organizations,” Norton says. This semester, she is a leader for Operation Christmas Child, which packs shoe boxes with toys for needy children, and she also helped raise money for charity organizations at UB sports events through the Student Association’s concession stand.
“Leadership House made me question where I am on my journey,” she says. “You have to take charge of your UB career; I would never have been involved in so many activities without it.” She hopes to one day become a registered dietician and use her skills to help her clients think critically about their health.
For more information on Leadership House, visit the Center for Student Leadership and Community Engagement online or in 235 Student Union, North Campus.
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