The summer leadership course is designed to prepare students for leadership roles and responsiblities with the aim of achieving excellence in the workplace, both at Berea College and Beyond.

Student Goals

• To be educated about various leadership theories
• To develop their own leadership style
• To learn how to work effectively in a team structure while retaining a high standard of personal integrity and interdependence
• To capture and foster the mission of excellence within the broader scope of the Berea College community

• Personal Introspection
  • Journal Reflection
  • Self assessment
  • Mission evaluation
  • Critical thinking skills, reading, analyzing
• Group training and reflection
  • Team buildinig
  • Shared leadership
  • Group dynamics
  • Community development
• Group and individual evaluation
• "On the field" application of principles

The leadership group spends approximately 60% of their time exploring the theoretical implications of leadership and teamwork and 40% of their time in the practical application of this theory.

Why?

Leadership principles have often been addressed in inferential, abstract terms:

• Duty
• Honor
• Ethics
• Virtue

The applications of Leadership Training are practical and extend into all realms of life

• Critical thinking skills
• Adaptability
• Realistic self-assessment
• Working in teams
• Community development
• Integration into academics and labor
• Career Choices

If you build yourself, you will build your community, and your community will build the world.

How?

The intentional design of the Leadership course propels students on the full circle of their leadership development.

• Students begin as "apprentice leaders" with opportunities to develop the competencies required for effective leadership.
• The "apprentice leaders" engage in multiple training, educational, and developmental activities with other students and professional staff.
• Eventually, these students become leaders of various teams within the labor program and extend their knowledge to other realms of life.

Some examples of how Leadership students practice excellence:

• Registration and Orientation Weekends (ROWs)
• Residence Hall Staff Training
• Orientation of new students
• Student Life service delivery
• Project collaboration with professional staff and students
• Community service
• Leading meetings
• Team building

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

—Aristotle