When I was little, I remember unwrapping gifts on holidays and birthdays and getting excited to see what was beneath that floral or polka dot paper. Much to my surprise, it was rarely a plain brown box underneath that wrapping paper.  I have an aunt who loved to put that unique gift inside of an old shoebox, in a paper towel cardboard tube, or even in the shipping box for frozen tater tots! I consider myself fortunate to have family that was dedicated to boxing items creatively.  (Besides, it would often lead to the ever-comical statement of “WOW! I always wanted Tator Tots!  Awesome!”)  As exciting as the new gifts inside were, the versatility of the boxes were even more thrilling.  In time, the shoebox would become a diorama for a grade school book report, the paper towel tube would become a telescope or musical instrument, and the Tator Tot box would become the perfect storage box to organize my baseball cards.

“The Box” has contributed to the growth of children and adult imaginations everywhere.  Boxes can be spaceships, racecars, castles, and even a supersonic time transporter (patent pending)! With unlimited possibilities and virtually zero limitations, why do we, as educators and leaders, often find ourselves looking for that “prepackaged” idea or concept inside of the box?  How often do you ask yourself or go in search of what’s been done in the past?  In a field where we are influential innovators, shouldn’t we be demonstrating more creativity and encouraging our students and peers to do the same?  Instead of confining assignments and projects to a predetermined outline, what is the harm in pushing the boundaries and expanding our horizons?  After all, isn’t life more fun and interesting when we think outside of the box?

Mandy Briggs, UW Oshkosh

I’ve been consulting with the Madison College Student Life Office (formerly Madison Area Technical College) to help them develop and implement an outdoor leadership program for students. The program uses outdoor adventure experiences as a tool to help students develop their leadership skills. This semester is a pilot and yesterday we had an exciting, successful day exploring leadership styles while caving.

The program model uses one-day stand-alone experiences combining a leadership skill with an outdoor skill. Yesterday’s program was called Leadership in the Dark: Exploring Leadership Styles Through Caving. Ten of us traveled two hours to explore Popp’s Cave, a real cave near Richland Center, Wisconsin. This is not a tourist cave like Cave of the Mounds. This involved a 30 minute hike through the snow, helmets, headlamps, and lots of crawling and exploring the amazing, underground passageways and rooms. Once in the cave I presented a short experiential lesson on the leadership styles continuum, introducing students to the idea that one’s leadership style should vary based on the conditions present and the group’s needs. They broke into small groups to discuss the autocratic, democratic, and abdicratic styles. We talked about what each style looked like in action. Then one of the students took over the leader role and got to experiment with his style while we traveled through the cave. At the next room we explored the group development process (forming-sorting-norming-performing) and talked about how the leadership continuum and the group development process intersect. As we continued on two more students had the opportunity to be group leaders. At the transition of each student the group provided feedback to the leader on what worked and what could be changed next time.

Throughout the day our clothes got muddier and muddier, yet as we stopped to talk about leadership styles the students seemed to gain clarity on the subject. Some of them commented that they thought leaders always had to be “in charge” and present more of an autocratic leadership style. They were excited to learn about the other styles since, for some, that suited their personalities better. The opportunity to be leader of the group was also empowering as many had never had that type of leadership role before.

All of us having fun in the Mud Room, Popp's Cave

It was a wonderful day and at the end I was again reminded of the power of outdoor experiential education. When sitting in our offices, in front of our computers it’s sometimes hard to imagine how taking a group caving for a day could lead to so much learning, but it definitely does. Weaving together outdoor activities and leadership development is a powerful tool for learning and personal development.

Written by Amy Climer, Climer Consulting. Amy provides outdoor leadership consulting services to colleges and summer camps. Contact Amy for resources or assistance with starting an outdoor leadership program at your college.

WCPA President Carolyn Bell oft reminds me that “we’re all experts!”  She also sets a great vision for WCPA by encouraging us to “keep it close,” meaning, let’s discuss what we’re already doing, share what we’re already thinking about, and avoid thinking of professional organization participation as “extra” to our jobs. These conversations ARE our work, and our students benefit when we seek out multiple perspectives.

Summer is good time for this in my world . . .  so here are the goals I have for myself as your Commission Chair.  Which one best touches your current work?  How can we work together?

Goals:

1. support at least three leadership and involvement related cross-institutional conference presentations (one in the works already with Fox Valley Tech & UW-Madison)
2. be actively involved in launching and sustaining WCPA’s new blog-style communication
3. support the development of WCPA’s Commission structure so it best helps WCPA members state-wide
4. recruit/inspire new Commission Chair for future years
5. have a good time, learn some things, and meet new people who are invested in student leadership development

So, here’s where I am this afternoon with a definition of this commission:

“This commission exists for us to discuss and share experiences related to students’ co-curricular experiences and how we, as professionals, facilitate and catalyze the students’ development in these experiences.

Our blog here is for sharing our work.  This includes our ideas, our challenges, our questions, and our successes.  Email your current commission chair, Tonya Trabant, at trabant@wisc.edu with anything you like, or with ideas for things to post.”

I’m so pleased to be a part of this sort of organizational development within WCPA. It’s exciting to see good stuff develop.

What do you think of what I’ve come up with?

This WCPA commission is titled “Leadership and Involvement” . . . so what does the collective we mean when we say this?

At the summer WCPA Board and Commission Chair meeting, we’re discussing the scope of this commission, and how it can best serve our members, which is of course you and me.  This scope question is key whenever leadership comes up as a topic.  What is leadership anyway? How do we define it? How do employers define leadership and how do they look for in our graduates? How does leadership matter in our day-do-day work?

These questions frame my thinking, but when I think of leadership and involvement, I think of students, first and foremost. What does leadership mean to them?  Do they ever think about followership?  How do we help them develop people?   How is leadership related to citizenship and to the AAC&U’s Essential Learning Outcomes (see http://www.aacu.org/leap/vision.cfm)?  And so on.  Is this commission student focused?  Are we getting together within our WCPA community to ponder challenges and best practices around student leadership development and student involvement?

Or, are we talking about us?  As professionals, what are our leadership development goals?  How do we want to be involved in our profession beyond our job titles, and how does that involvement serve us?  What is  leadership in the context of student affairs?

For this commission, at least for this year,  we’re going to focus on students . . . and of course, when we learn more about students, we’re doing our own development and work too!

Welcome to the new WCPA Leadership & Involvement Commission page for sharing information and resources.