The Office of Campus
Life is proud to support an out of classroom experience where students
are able to practice and develop their leadership skills. The world
continues to move towards a dispersed leadership model, where both
positional leaders and entry level professionals are expected to possess
a core of leadership skills upon transitioning from college to career.
Campus Life provides Colby students the opportunity to better
understand important concepts like group development, effective
communication, peer motivation, mission and goal setting, succession
planning, and much more. Our hope is that students who engage with our
programs will find that they have a better sense of self, a toolkit of
tangible skills to draw upon, and a greater confidence to lead.
Students
are encouraged to intentionally think about their leadership
development in three areas of engagement: preparation, action, and
reflection. Preparation means taking the time
to think about the goals you want to accomplish during your time at
Colby or attending workshops that teach you something new about your
leadership style, any engagement that stretches your mind to think about
leadership in a personal context. Once you have engaged in a
preparatory process, it’s time for action. Action means participating
in a student organization, applying for a campus leadership position,
identifying a need and rallying peers toward a public solution, or any
other activity where you are required to put your leadership skills to
practice. Last but not least we ask you to take time to think back upon
these experience. Too often in our daily lives, whether in school or
career, people tend to bounce from action to action without taking the
time to learn from those experiences. Reflection allows you to
elucidate your leadership education. Ask yourself, what was learned?
What tactics were effective, and what could have been tried
differently? The P-A-R process is cyclical, so as you finish your
reflection you may start to think about the next steps in your
development, which leads back into the preparation stage.
We invite you to look
through the leadership opportunities we have available through the
Office of Campus Life, and we encourage you to seek out leadership
experiences throughout Colby College. If you would like to talk about
your personal leadership development plan, or if you’d like to learn
more about your options for engagement, please contact Paul Spangle at
pspangle@colby.edu.
