Detroit Service Trip LEAD team, try number 2

My freshman year, my cohort of LAS went on a service trip to Detroit where we received education about Detroit and served the community. This year I was on the LEAD team for the Detroit Service Trip for the freshman cohort of LAS. This meant I was able to participate in the experience and facilitate reflections with a small group of students. This experience had some differences from my freshman year, and I have grown a lot and am different too. It is because of these differences that I was able to learn so much and be impacted so heavily by the experience.

One of the biggest things that I took away this time was how aware I was of the gentrification that is occurring in Detroit. On the first day of the trip, we spent some time with Quicken Loans and took a historic tour of Detroit. During the tour, we learned about the housing barriers that have been placed on people of color and the systemic racism that has driven many decisions that have been made in the city. Decisions that were made not that long ago, have had immense effects on communities of color. After the day, I was eager to get into reflection because of the impact the tour. It was fulfilling to hear and see students response to the tour and the amount they learned. They were able to connect the dots in how power and privilege can lead to groups being oppressed. The next day we served with CASS. The group I was with worked on recycling paper. I helped sort paper before it went to be shredded.

This experience was an amazing one that gave me the opportunity to help members of the freshman cohort reflect and grow from their experience, and it gave me the opportunity to learn and grow myself.

Talk the Leadership Talk

Another class I took this year with my LAS cohort was Communication in Leadership.  A lot of the topics covered in this class are similar to the topics covered in my LDR 200 class I took freshman year.  However, being a year older I believe helped me understand and takeaway the material a little differently than before

The first assignment in this class is telling a story about a time you failed as a leader.  I was shocked when I heard this was our first assignment.  This is not something we are asked, and I was genuinely curious to hear all of these people who I consider strong leaders around me talk about a time they failed.  Most people told stories of times they were in high school.  This contrasted with our last assignment which was to tell a story of a time we implemented a topic from the course and were successful as a leader.  Most people told these stories from a time that was extremely recent.  I loved hearing this because it showed the growth in the each person because they were growing so much as leaders in as short of a time as from high school to college.

My favorite lesson from this class was talking about the types of ethical challenges in leadership.  I felt it was extremely applicable to the leadership roles I have now, and that I will have in the future, including my future career.  I think it is also arguably one of the most important because in order to be a strong leader, you have to be ethical. This is definitely one of my biggest lessons learned from this class.

Morality

One of the classes we are required to take for LAS protocol is a philosophy class taught by the one and only Gary Fuller.  I can honestly say this is one of my favorite classes I have taken so far at CMU.  Gary Fuller walks into the classroom with an unmatched personality and energy that creates an atmosphere that I do not think anyone in my cohort was prepared for.  Gary also has a deep amount of appreciation and respect for his students.  I still see Gary on campus outside of the classroom, and we have a full conversation every time.  He is a professor who genuinely cares about his students, and he even throws us a Christmas party at the end of the semester.

Aside from the professor, I loved this class because of the way it made me think.  This class added not only the question of if something was morally okay or not, but also why something was moral or not.  I have always been a person who was very strong in beliefs, and I am willing to vocalize them.  I was constantly being challenged in this class to be able to defend my beliefs and whether or not they are moral.  This class touched on a lot of topics that made people angry.  The topics paired with the 8ams caused for a large chunk of the class to often become disengaged.  This added even more to my overall takeaway from the class.

You cannot make people care.  I may believe something is or is not morally okay.  Someone else may believe differently.  We may have our reasons and that is where debate begins and change happens.  However, if people don’t have an opinion, no one is challenged.  There is a lack of growth, and there is a lack of change.  Discovering how actions and ideas line up with your values is essential to being a leader because it allows you to have the important conversations and to make a difference.

The Saddest Cancelled Trip in History (not to be dramatic)

Last year I had to the privilege of going on the LAS in the D trip with my freshman cohort.  As members of LAS we serve on a LEAD team, and I was super excited when I found out I would be returning to Detroit as a member of the LAS in the D lead team.  As a facilitator of the Detroit Service Trip I would get the responsibility of being paired with another member of the LEAD team to help facilitate a group of freshman.

Through planning this trip, the LEAD team was getting really excited because we were working with our three LEAD team co-chairs to help them make the trip the best and most service and education oriented trip yet.  We had a chance to meet with the freshman who were going to be in our groups for the week to do pre-trip reflections to get their minds in the right mindset to learn and help foster change. Things were looking great, and we were ready to go.

But, weather in Michigan does not always let us get what we want.  The Thursday before the trip we found out the Detroit Service Trip had to be cancelled due to weather.  This was extremely shocking and disappointing. I was not only sad that I would not get to experience and grow from this trip, but I was also sad that there was a cohort of freshman who would not get to have the eye-opening experience that I had the year before.

Out of this happening I learned mostly that there are things out of our control.  I had my time to be bummed, but there are ways to learn outside of going on this service trip that I should embrace.  Others may not have been able to go on the exact trip I did as a freshman, but in that in no way means I cannot encourage others to take initiative and try to educate themselves.  I hope next year I get the opportunity to serve on the Detroit Service Trip LEAD team, so I can help make the difference I want.

Which one is the Mentor?

As a member of LAS, during my sophomore year I mentor one of the members of LAS in the freshman cohort.  I had the absolute privilege of having Julie Martin as my mentee.  I have a great relationship with my mentor, Stephanie, and I was worried that my relationship with Julie was not going to be as strong.  I felt like I still relied on Steph a lot, and was nervous that I was not going to be ready for a mentee of my own.  Despite these initial fears,  I did know that I had a lot of love for CMU to share and I was going to be able to care for my mentee and help them with whatever I was able to.

From the start, I started learning more from Julie than I think she even knows.  Even as a freshman entering college,  I have never met a stronger human.  With all of the stress and things that were thrown her way from the very beginning of her college career, Julie showed the ultimate definition of maturity in handling everything.  I have never met a person in my life who can truly take a situation and look at it from every side the way Julie does.  Her strength does not even begin to compare for her heart.  Through getting to know Julie, I have learned that she has the biggest heart of anyone I have ever met.  This is what makes Julie such an amazing leader.  She cares about the people around her and making them grow.  She is the definition of authenticity and servant leadership because she is putting everyone around her first, but she does not lose who she is in the process.  When I am around Julie, I want to be a better leader.

One of the ways I have grown in terms of my leadership skills with Julie is my communication skills.  I have learned to ask what she needed. Feedback is a large part of being successful in any capacity, and our mentor-mentee relationship does not end here.  I have asked her what I have done that has helped her and what hasn’t.  This way in the future I will be able to help her in whatever way is best fit.

I know through these next years at CMU Julie and I will continue to have a close relationship, and I know that I will continue to grow and learn from her as I hope she is learning from me as well.

Learning to Lead

As an LAS cohort (plus one leader who is not a part of LAS) we take a class together called LDR 200L.  This class is a leadership class where we learn important skills needed to improve our leadership abilities. Throughout the class we had to facilitate different activities and learn about the different leadership theories.  Though there were multiple leadership theories that were applicable to my life, the one I found the most applicable was the Behavioral Approach to leadership.

A lot of time in leadership people focus a lot on the relationship between the leader and the followers.  Don’t be me wrong this is an EXTREMELY vital part of leadership, however I like how this theory focus a lot on how leaders can be a mixture of being very task-oriented and relationship oriented.  I consider myself to be a very personable person, however, when things are not getting finished or are left until the last minute I get pretty anxious, which will affect the people around me to become anxious as well.  I think knowing how to balance task and relationships is one of the most important parts of being a great leader.

I am going to be a guide for Leadership Safari this fall, so when I was learning the theories in LDR I would try to put them into context of how I can use my knowledge while leading a small group.  Behavioral approach was one of the most easily applicable in this scenario too because of the amount of activities that are fit in to such a short amount of time during Leadership Safari.  However, in order to make Leadership Safari an amazing experience for the participants, I will need to form fun and trusting relationships with them.  LDR 200 has made me feel much more comfortable with my leading abilities, and it also taught me that I have A LOT more room for growth; that’s a good thing!

I also learned a lot about how to debrief.  Going through LDR has taught me that debriefing is the most important part of leading an activity.  It is the part that connects all the dots and allows participants to see the bigger picture of what they are doing.  Debriefing allows the leader of the activity to learn as well and see a new a view point on things that could have not seen before.

A lot of people didn’t like going to LDR because it was three hour long evening class, but I can honestly say that I always looked forward to it because learning about things that were so applicable to our lives was SO FUN!

Repeating History

Another class that we take for our LAS protocol is an American History class.  I had already take AP US History is high school and passed the exam, but since my scholarship required it, I had to take this class again.  I already knew a lot of the information, but this class forced me to look at the history of the United States through a different lens.

In this class we had to do book reviews about leaders in American History.  My first book review was about Elizabeth Cady Stanton.  I picked her to write my report because I knew it would be something that interests me because of my passion for feminism.  Through learning about this person and their life as an activist, I learned a lot about what makes a powerful and successful leader.  I large part of why Elizabeth Cady Stanton is so successful is because she had the ability to adapt to whoever she was around to help fit their needs.  She was a smart leader because she knew how to motivate a crowd.  She would go to any end to fight for what she wanted.  I also learned a lot about the start of feminism in the 19th Century.  This was interesting to me because how feminism has changed since then is drastic.

 My second book review I focused on medical researcher Jonas Salk.  I am pre-med, so I wanted a chance to research someone who has had such a large impact on my field.  It was through this project that I learned about how self-serving leadership can cause a person to lose themselves.  A large part of why Salk fought so hard to become successful was because he wanted to be loved and adored by the scientific community, however, finding the cure caused him to become an outcast in the scientific community due to jealousy.  This caused him to eventually allow himself to deteriorate and lose things that were important to him.

Though I already knew a lot about American History, the class has probably been the class this year that has taught me the most about leadership.  It is from the research I have done that I can say what kind of leader I want to be, and what aspects about leadership can help make you a successful leader.  I have found that Elizabeth Cady Stanton is one my biggest role models, and I strive to have her type of leadership.  From this class I now know that a large part of leadership is your ability to read your followers.  However, this doesn’t have to make you lose what your fighting for.

 

My Mentor kicks Buck(holz)

My LAS mentor is Stephanie (Her last name is Buckholz if you didn’t understand the pun).  But not only is she my mentor, she is one of my best friends.

Coming into college I was extremely intimidated by LAS.  I wasn’t really sure what it was, or what being a part of it entailed.  Steph helped smooth everything out, and helped me realize how to get all my crap together in the midst of coming to college.  I feel like this is something most mentees can say about their mentor, but not many can say that they feel like their mentor is their other half.  Steph literally always knows how to make me smile or laugh with one look.  We truly understand each other so well, and we are so able to be open with each other.  The two of us share a lot of passions, such as the environment, women’s rights, and more, so we never are in a lack of intellectual conversation.  We both are completely fascinated by science, and have had countless conversations about how in awe we are of the way the human body works.  She is someone who I connect with so well on these deeper levels, but I cannot overlook how much our quirky goofy personalities go together.

I learned a lot about what type of mentor I want to be through my relationship with Steph.  Steph and I got to be so close because we would make plans to have mentor/mentee dates to get dinner around once a week.  These dinner plans quickly turned into something I looked forward to, and they are always the bright light of my week.  By always having the plans to see each other, it became so much easier for us to connect and get comfortable with each other.  Next year, when I am a mentor I plan on doing the same sort of thing with my mentee.  I want to be friends with my mentee, not just be their mentor.

Having such a close relationship with Stephanie has made having her as a Mentor so much easier.  I am eternally grateful for her love and friendship, and I cannot wait to get closer over the years.

 

Walking for a Cure

A part of our LAS protocol is participating in a LEAD team.  There are multiple LEAD teams such as Special Olympics, Competition Day, LAS in the D, and more.  My LEAD team that I was placed on was Relay for Life.  I was super excited when I found out this was my LEAD team because it was one of my top choices.  However, as Relay was growing closer we hadn’t has many meetings, done much fundraising, or decided on what we were doing with our table at the actual event.  Long story short, the LEAD team was struggling and there was an opportunity for me to become the new LEAD team co-chair.  I took this opportunity, and at first I was pretty nervous because I already have a busy schedule.  However, this gave me the opportunity to really dive in and enjoy Relay for Life in a way that is much different than I had I not been put into this leadership position.

With such a short amount of time the other co-chairs and I really were hoping that members of the LEAD team would do some fundraising on their own.  We began fundraising only three weeks before Relay and because of the commitment of the team members (S/0 Allie Rutman, Kelsey Corr, and Riley McGuire!!!) we ended up being 5th out of 59 teams for fundraising.  In a short three weeks we had raised over 1250 dollars for Relay for Life.  As things started to come together, I got super excited for Relay.

The day of Relay was probably one of my best days I have had at Central.  Relay started at 12pm, and from the very start there were people there ready to walk for a cure.  I had not been to a Relay in a really long time and I had forgotten how much fun it was!   It was even fun when we were sitting at the table selling cookies, selling t-shirts, and getting pied in the face.

The best part of the day was when a janitor working the event came up to us after seeing us do the pie in the face, and offered to add a little bit of flare to that particular fundraiser.  He said that when he was a little kid, he saw someone all dressed up get pied in the face and thought it was hilarious.  He said that it has been a life long dream to have someone pie him in the face while wearing a dress suit because he wanted to make people laugh.  He said he would go buy real pies(we had been using paper plates filled with whip cream) and also donate 20 dollars if we found people to pie him.  We got a survivor to pie him at the end of the night and five others attending Relay also pied him.  At the end of the night after he got pied, he was so happy it brought tears to his eyes.  He said he loved that not only could he live out his dream, he had the opportunity to make people laugh, but also donate to such a great cause.

Relay for Life really causes me to sit back and think about how many people in the world are affected by cancer.  You cannot go anywhere or know anyone without seeing/knowing someone who has had a relative or a friend or even themselves be affected by cancer.  Relay gives us the opportunity to help this cause, but also remember our loved ones.

This whole experience has taught me a lot about leadership.  I took this opportunity because I thought that it would help me a lot, and I didn’t really think much about how it would give me the opportunity to take a larger role in helping the community of people that Relay effects.  During the Luminaria ceremony, I kind of realized that the best part of this experience was being able to see that guy make people happy and see the survivors do the survivor lap.  This kind of opened my eyes that though leadership does help me grow, that is just a secondary benefit.  The best benefit of Leadership is the influence that we have on others and the differences we can make in the world.

Get Connected, FOR FREE

As a part of LAS we got the opportunity to go to the Connections Conference at Great Wolf Lodge in Traverse City, MI.  Though LAS goes to the conference, it is open to anyone on Central’s campus that would like to go.  When we got there the first night, we were introduced to the groups we would be working with over the course of the next two days and then were given free time to go to the waterpark!  The next day, we woke up early and got right to business on learning new information about leadership.  We were allowed to pick four different speakers we wanted to go to throughout Saturday.  I chose “Branching Out: Netflix and No Chill”, “Leadership Through the Eyes of Disney”, “Growing your roots”, and “Friendship in Leadership.”

“Branching Out: Netflix and No Chill” was one of my favorites out of the sessions.  It focused on disconnecting from social media and our technology in order to connect with others.  We ended by doing an activity where we colored leaves based on  how much we time we think we spend doing a certain activity.  There were six different branches and the leaves pertained to whatever theme branch they were on.  The six different branches were physical, spiritual, psychological, emotional, intellectual, and social.  I loved this activity because it help me realize that sometimes I need to focus on my own health both mentally and physically a little more.  This session focused a lot on not only connecting with others but connecting with yourself as well in order to keep yourself healthy.

“Leadership Through the Eyes of Disney” was really fun because I am a big Disney fan.  We first began with naming our five favorite Disney characters and then choosing which one we thought we identified with the most.  I chose Anna from Frozen because she is goofy and has a very optimistic look on the world.  I feel like her personality matches mine pretty well.  After that we picked our top 10 values that were eventually narrowed down to our number 1 value.  Mine was Family because I am extremely close with my family, and I believe that the value of family includes friendship, love, and trust.  After picking our value they had us think of the values of Disney character and see if the Disney character we chose would have the same value.  I was so shocked that I had never made the connection before that the thing me and Anna have most in common would be our most important value.  I liked the session a lot because something I hold very important in my life is my values, so I love whenever I get the opportunity to talk or think about them and what they mean to me.

“Growing your roots” is a session that dealt a lot with what you look for in a mentor, and what you need to be a successful mentor yourself.  I chose this one because I know in a year I will be a mentor to my LAS mentee, and I want to be able to be the best mentor I can be for them!  We spent a lot of time discussing who our role models are. I have a lot of very prevalent mentors in my life, so we discussed why they are our role models and what traits and things they do that help us in order for us to be able to understand what may work when we are mentors to others.

“Friendship in Leadership” was my other favorite out of the sessions.  The session used Harry Potter to help teach us about healthy relationships and leadership.  I love Harry Potter, so I knew I would enjoy this session when I picked it.  We learned what is known as “Comfort in, Dump Out”.  This basically shows us how to deal with tough situations and how they may be affecting us and others around us who are also dealing with the same situation.  The picture below shows how you should deal with the situations.  You should spend time comforting the people who are more inward on the circle, but you should only vent or explain your feelings of being hurt to people who are more outward of you on the circle.  We then did role playing with the Harry Potter characters where we were each assigned a character from the Goblet of Fire and were told to interact with each right after *SPOILER ALERT* Cedric is killed by Lord Voldemort! I was Cho Chang, so I could vent about how upset I was to everyone except for Amos(Cedric’s dad) and Harry.  However, the only two people who could vent to me were Amos and Harry.  This is more difficult in real life because it is harder to identify who is truly closer to a situation.  The “Comfort in, Dump out” ideology is a very useful method with having healthy relationships and learning how to be a source of comfort for others.

I learned a lot about not only how to connect better with my cohort, but also to be able to connect to other organizations on campus.  The things that I learned are things I can use in everyday life, especially the “comfort in, dump out” theory.  I feel as if I am more able to be conscious of others feelings in a situation with that theory in mind.  Overall, the Connections Conference was a blast, and I hope next year I can go back as a facilitator to help others enjoy the experience and learn as much as I did.