Can you be a leader? Can I? - theory on titular leaders explored

To lead a person does not have to be in charge, so to speak. Leading is a step away even when you are not the named leader in a group project or any type of activity in life. To me, any input is leading in some sense. If people in your group are having trouble with an idea and you know how to take that idea and re-mold it into something the group can understand better that is a form of leading. Anytime a member of a group or society puts their ideas out into the world they are leading in some shape or form because other people will always be listening. Leading is all about taking your ideas or other's ideas and putting them into action. Leading is about helping people and doing what you can to make things work. Being a named leader isn't necessary to help through the process. Take for instance the first day we talked about what a leader was with Kouzes and Posner's book. The first step to leading is modeling the way. If you are sharing an idea or showing people how to do something or even making sure to take part in a group activity you are modeling the way. According to Kouzes and Posner that definitely means you are a leader. Leading is not all about getting a spot light shown on you and having someone "put you in charge." It's about how you use the tools that you have as a person and how you help others to understand by modeling the way, inspiring a shared vision, challenging the process, enabling others to act, and encouraging others to act. By being a leader without the title you are already challenging to the process by letting your leadership ideals shine through when you aren't even expected to do so. I believe leading is not about a title you are given, rather something that everyone can do no matter what situation they are in. In my opinion, everyone can lead, but some people choose to explore their abilities and become more improved leaders than those who do not choose to explore their individual talents.

Interview Day!!

AMAZING!!! I had such a great day today at the interview. Did anyone else have as much fun as I did? I went into the interviews without a worry in my system, because I have worked with most of the people who I was going to be interacting with today so i had no need to be worried. I was a little nervous about the activities and i was convinced that we were going to be doing human knots, because i know how much Dean Moselle loves them. I'm glad we didn't. I was a little worried about that one. =) I had interviews first today and they went amazing. I don't think I could have done any better if i tried. I felt so comfortable talking to my interviewers and I felt really confident with what I was going to say and how the interviews were going to pan out. I had so much fun doing everything else in the day too. I really enjoyed the program activity, because I love thinking of program ideas. I have so many good ones that I can't wait to put into action when I become an RA, even if I have to do a mini needs assessment of my Res. hall first. I'm willing to do anything to ensure i plan an amazing program. I liked the tower building project, but halfway through my groups session I started thinking the way I should have been since the beginning of the session when we figured out what the task was. Of course it wasn't actually about building a tower! It was about group work... Wow. It's interesting how if you just take things at face value you will never actually get the full meaning of an exercise. It was a lot of fun. Our tower was really cool and it actually held the cup of water -- that was unexpected. I had such a great day today... I can't wait to get my acceptance letter! I am so sure that I will get the position after how well today went. I thought we were going to have to wait a lot longer to find out who made it too, so i am glad we are finding out on the 14th! We all get to relax for break and then as soon as we come back we find out if we made RA or not! This is amazing! Is anyone else as excited as I am?

Reflection 4 - Hillary for President

Looking at the different candidates for the Presidential election and their views on changes in higher education, I'm still sure my vote will go to Hillary. After looking at her direct website http://hillaryclinton.com/issues/education/ I have decided I really agree with her stand points on higher education. A few of the things I agree with are; increasing the federal pell grant, challenging selective schools to accept more lower income students and challenging colleges to keep down their costs and tracking their progress with an online college cost calculator. Increasing the federal pell grant will help students get more money for college from the government. Student loans are incredibly hard to get in the first place and when a student achieves a loan they have to pay it back for years after graduation, because of all the built up interest. I can't take out any loans by myself so i know that an increase in the pell grant would help me and others like me. Second, I know a lot of people would really love going to schools that are more selective with their admittance of lower income people, but they are turned down because of that exact thing. I believe a change in the way students are accepted into colleges selective or not, would be a major improvment in the higher education system overall because sometimes students are turned down for unfair reasons and I think that should really be cleared up. I also think that some schools accept the wrong people just because they want to meet a quota and I think this idea can help schools with that problem. Students should be accepted to colleges and Universities becasue they fit into what the colleges values are, not because the school needs more students. Finally, I absolutely love the idea of an online cost calculator to monitor the tuition raises in colleges. Going to college is so expensive these days that a lot of people can't afford to go in the first place. If some sort of cap was set on tuition costs at colleges a lot more students would attend and a lot more students would stay at their colleges until graduation, because they would be able to afford it. This would make graduation rates increase and make a college degree a little more attainable, which is becoming more and more necessary in today's world. Overall, I think Hillary has a win, win plan for higher education, because as i said before she has a way to help future students get more money to go to school and she wants to make it easier for students to get into their school of choice.

Reflection 3

My University is going to sound a little too perfect, but work with me here. It's my University, right?

If I could build my own University it would be small and an all women's university. I like small campuses better than large ones, because the environment has a more more community like attitude, rather than a fend for yourself feel to it. I would also make sure my school recycled and was green friendly. I want to make sure the students, faculty, staff, etc all share respectful attitudes with each other. I would have a set of res. hall rooms for early risers and people who stay up late, because there are usually problems in res. halls because of this and I think it would be a lot more efficient to have res. halls dedicated to both sleeping patterns so people could get along a little better in their living environments. My University would have 24 hour food services and full access to the library 24/7. I would also have a campus lounge for students, faculty, and anyone else to relax in. The lounge would need to have comfy chairs, some active things, computers, and food options so people wouldn't have to go all the way back to their res. halls or apartments because they have an hour break between classes. This lounge would be an academically as well as a physically stimulating environment. My res. halls would have guest policies just like the ones at Chatham, because I think our guest policies make a lot of sense, see student handbook. My res. halls would also have water fountains and black and white along with color printers and access to scanners and photo copiers with no cost to the student. At my University everyone would have a week break every other month for a cool off period, because staying at school without a break every once in a while is hard to do sometimes. Class times at my University would also be solid once they were put on the registration website, because it becomes an inconvenience for everyone when class times change after people have already enrolled in the course. My campus would look almost identical to Chatham, because I love the set up. I want my campus to be very environmentally engaged. I want my campus to be a beautiful oasis down a long road no one ever travels, unless they live there because they have no idea where it leads. My University would be very academically engaging with tons of interesting classes and opportunities to take classes at other Universities. I would want a diverse student body along with the faculty and staff. Everyone working for the University or attending the University would be selected because they represent something my University stands for. I want this to happen, because when my faculty, staff, and student body leave campus I want the people they interact with daily to know they came from my University just by the way they carry themselves. I could go on forever about my University, but I am going to stop now. My University would be one of the most amazing Universities around. In the end I would want it to be similar to Chatham, but with some things adjusted. After all, I chose Chatham because I love it here, why would I want to make anything different?