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!