This is my award winning essay on student leadership. Enjoy!
In this world, people can be differentiated by many characteristics. One way to differentiate a person is by how he or she addresses change. There are some people who are afraid of change and try their best to cling to familiarity. Then there are those who try their best to adapt to change. However, as a student leader, I am neither a person who is afraid of change nor am I one who simply adheres to change. I am a student leader who creates change. In everything that I pursue, I share my passion, motivate others, and create lasting transformations throughout my campus and local community.
As Secretary of the Undergraduate Leadership Council (ULEAD), I was able to combine my interest of working with children with helping the community where help is most needed. By initiating a service project that engages our club’s members in the Amherst Leisure Center’s Annual Halloween Fest and Carnival, I was able to encourage our members to set up and run the whole Halloween Carnival for many children and families in Amherst. In the first year alone, we served over 50 children and their families to games and activities throughout the night. Since then, our members have helped organize this event for 3 consecutive years to provide a safe and fun-filled Halloween event for the city of Amherst.
My enthusiasm for serving the community has enabled us to provide affordable leisure to Amherst families and to prevent the influence of underage drinking on the growing number of students who volunteered during this event and opted out of the party scene. An increasing number of ULEAD members, and members of other campus organizations, are volunteering at this annual event since my initial outreach to the Amherst Leisure Center. My leadership has created innovation, collaboration, and integrity for both this campus and community.
Under my leadership, students are motivated to become involved on this campus. I worked my way up as Academic Committee Co-Chair to Treasurer and ultimately to Co-President for Alpha Lambda Delta (ALD), a national honor society. Throughout the two and a half years that I served on the Executive Board of ALD, I inspired members to change their attitude towards ALD. This honor society was simply inactive, so by asking members what they wanted to see happen, rather than planning events that they were uninterested in, I was able to engage our members. The outcome of my communication with our members was the launch of the first "Spring into ALD" social during the week after the 2009 Induction Ceremony. Before the launch of this first annual social, only a handful of members came to the general chapter meetings. However, after over 60 people showed up for the social, the chapter meetings began to increase in numbers. To this day, the number of members who actually attend the general chapter meetings remain consistently high.
Our members also expressed interest in holding a video game tournament to benefit the children's literacy program at our local library. I supported their interest by working with the new committee co-chairs to make this charity event happen within a month's time. Even though the event was during the last week of school amidst final exams, our members and non-members alike showed their support by participating in the video game tournament, and we were able to raise over $300 for our local library. Raising such a large donation during a one day event that took less than a month to plan was the result of my engaging leadership that changed our members’ attitudes toward being involved in ALD.
When members lack motivation, I took leadership in building passion and transforming attitudes. It did not take me long to learn that Golden Key (GK) members were passionate about serving the community while maintaining high academic achievements. As I thought about how I could take one step further to celebrate the importance of community relationships and individual achievements, I created the first and only campus-wide mentoring program. As an honor society, the treasure of our organization lies in the diversity of our members. I wanted to give our members the opportunity to share our treasures with the campus by creating this mentoring program that brings together not only the diversity in majors of our members, but also the diversity of ages, which is often left unaddressed. The upperclassmen members who elect to participate in this program are matched with underclassmen from Alpha Lambda Delta (ALD).
The purpose of the mentoring program is to build strong relationships between the different age groups on campus and to foster respect and appreciation for the diversity of our campus community. Mentors and mentees are matched based on their individual requests for certain criteria such as personal interests, job or internship experiences, personality, major or minor, and more. Further, mixer activities and events that bring mentors and mentees together are organized to help these relationships flourish. Through this collaboration, young ALD members, who usually join GK when they become eligible, will have exposure to the excellence in GK members to inspire their future involvement with GK.
Throughout my college career, I have used my leadership abilities to create changes in various organizations and this community. The way in which I lead embodies the GK values of integrity, collaboration, innovation, respect, diversity, excellence, and engagement. In everything that I pursue, I share my passion, motivate others, and create lasting transformations throughout my campus and local community.
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