Five months of planning;

four tracks of sessions designed to give a range of options;

Three session blocks,

Two student governments joining up to "host" the event,

…and one big day of programs from 9:30 am – 4 pm.

We had our Student Leadership Summit here on campus this past weekend
in conjunction with another area institution.  My colleagues and
friends at our neighboring campus were also experimenting with more
leadership offerings and so we decided to work together and host one
conference for both campuses.All this went into the event, yet one of our most active student leaders (and a student I trust and respect immensely!) can only say "this didn't suck as much as I thought it would."

I know it's a challenge to recruit participants in events that are "for your own good" events carrying no credits or other types of merit awards.  However, our employers and graduate schools are calling for our students to arrive on their doorsteps with "leadership skills" and we have to answer that call.

Our event today offered some seriously high quality topics and, I believe, met students at a variety of levels.  But, I think that in our effort to be "all things," we probably lose some focus.  It leads me to wonder, what's it going to take to get the "average student" out of bed on a Saturday morning if one of my "frequent flyers" is already expecting it to "suck" even before it starts?

If you are in the same boat as we are and are currently wondering where to begin, I'd like to offer a few thoughts:

• Think about leadership training, leadership education, and leadership development as three separate things.  Your campus should figure out if the true goal is to focus on just one of these or on all three.
• Do you have to choose "a model?" 
   I had a great conversation with my colleague from the other campus today about this.  Choosing a model offers ability to gain consistency between programs and departments around campus.  However, it doesn't mean just throwing programs together organized around the 7 C's of the Social Change Model or doing one workshop in each of the 5 Practices of Exemplary Leadership.  You can still teach what you need to teach, but use your models as a framework for writing your learning outcomes for your program as well as a litmus test for knowing whether your programs are truly "comprehensive." 
• Look at a long term plan to establish a comprehensive effort over time, presenting programs with multiple points of entry for students.
  If a junior suddenly realizes they are interested in some leadership programs, make sure they can jump in just as easily as a freshman can. 
• Decide if your programs are for positional leaders or for every student on campus.                           
  If your campus activities office is sponsoring these leadership workshops, you may have to work to adjust a perception that these programs are only for those in positional roles.  This has been a difficulty for us and, based on today's event, is still something we need to address here.

Not every campus has the luxury of having one office or even one staff member who can devote time to leadership education.  So, here's our "money question." 

If you had to choose one area of focus for your leadership programming and could only offer 1 or 2 programs a year, what do you choose?

• Leadership training?  (train your club/organization/positional leaders)
• Leadership development? (cultivate more of your students to be involved with leadership experiences)
• Leadership education?  (educate your students about what leadership is)

I hope to hear your comments!

(commercial: Join us on Twitter for #sachat on Thursdays at 7 Central Time.  It was all kinds of fun last week!)