Class of 2013 Leadership Certificate students are Marie Elise-McGonigle (from left), Nicole Lee, A-Joo Kim, Whitney Waller, Lindsay Davis, Rachael Ashdown, Lauren Morgan, Natalie Dolan and Scarlett Reel. Not pictured are Christen Campbell, Julia Green, Victoria Litos and Samantha Schwartz.

On Saturday, Sweet Briar’s Leadership Certificate Program graduated its sixth class, ready to engage and influence the world community they will be part of.

Class of 2013 candidates receiving certificates were Rachael Ashdown, Christen Campbell, Lindsay Davis, Natalie Dolan, Julia Green, A-Joo Kim, Nicole Lee, Victoria Litos, Marie-Elise McGonigle, Lauren Morgan, Scarlett Reel, Samantha Schwartz and Whitney Waller.

Initiated in 2005, 66 students have completed the LCP curriculum, which is designed in three two-semester phases, leaving time for candidates to study abroad. The phases are progressive and combine theoretical and experiential learning. Students explore what leadership is, gain self-awareness, and develop concrete skills such as time management, organization and public speaking.

Emphasis is given to personal values, leadership styles, communication and ethical decision-making. Candidates also work with diverse groups, including external organizations, toward a common goal, and develop an awareness of contemporary and global issues.

“Throughout, there is a big focus on the experiential piece, because you can’t learn leadership by just talking about it,” says Joan Lucy, who has directed the program since 2006.

Unlike the College’s other courses of study that result in a certificate, this one is administered by and rooted in the co-curricular life office. The overarching idea is to help them understand how all of their activities outside the classroom — be it club participation, internships or work-study — complement what they learn in an academic setting by tying together the practical and the theoretical.

Candidates are required to identify 12 credit hours that are relevant to their leadership studies, “so they can draw connections to what they’re learning in the classroom and the things we’re doing,” Lucy says.

Getting involved on campus is a big reason many students sign up for the LCP. Sophomore Sarah Gray says just being in the program has opened doors.

“It’s amazing. I never thought that I would be approached by so many girls whom I respect so much to be on their committees and to be seen as a leader. I have been approached to join teams, apply for jobs, be [a] mentor, serve on committees and run for office,” she says.

Senior Lindsay Davis recognized the value of having leadership skills and the need to be able to assert herself in her chosen field of engineering. She used to shy away from leadership roles and any kind of public speaking.

“Now I feel that I can give a presentation at the drop of a hat,” she says.

The certificate also draws employers’ attention. At least two engineering firms asked Davis about it in interviews. But her biggest takeaway might be the change she has seen in herself — and what it implies for her future.

“I now know that the only thing keeping me from doing anything is trying,” Davis says. “I’ve learned that I would rather try and fail than never try at all. I believe that with my Sweet Briar education, along with my experience in the Leadership Certificate Program, I can do anything I aspire to.”

Learn more about the Leadership Certificate Program here.

— Jennifer McManamay

Stan Pearson II

This year’s theme is “Discovering Your Blueprint: Finding and Exploring Your Personal Leadership Style.” Motivational speaker and entertainer Stan Pearson II, “The S.A.L.S.A. Guy,” will give the keynote address. Pearson offers an array of workshops, training and presentations, but specializes in engaging with young audiences, especially on topics such as diversity and leadership.

Following his address, participants can choose among breakout sessions. Speakers include Jennifer Braganza, a Bank of America project manager, who will talk about “Understanding and Leveraging Your Personal Toolbox.” Annie Jones, Sweet Briar’s residence life director and a former Marine, will present “B.A.M.: Emerging Leadership within the Ranks.” Sweet Briar career services director Wayne Stark and Alison Stockdale ’00, drug program manager for the U.S. Department of Interior, will also lead sessions.

Sessions run from 10:30 to 11:15 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Closing remarks will follow lunch.

The annual conference, which is entirely organized by students in Sweet Briar’s Leadership Certificate Program, is always well attended, so early registration is recommended. Attire is business casual.

For more information and to register, go to sbc.edu/leadership-conference. The cost for non-Sweet Briar students is $10, which includes a continental breakfast, lunch and door prizes. For questions, please contact Joan Lucy, leadership program director, at jlucy@sbc.edu or (434) 381-6528.

In one of the five workshops they attended — of more than 60 offered at the annual, three-day conference — students were divided into groups based on personality tests they had taken. Each group of two to 15 students was then told to build something with LEGO building blocks. What they built would say something about how they lead.

The challenge for Sullivan and her group was the workshop leader didn’t say exactly what to build. “As a leader, I like when someone tells you, ‘Here’s what you have to do.’ I love to follow rules,” Sullivan, an economics major who has completed Sweet Briar’s Leadership Certificate Program, said. “But if it’s open ended, I’m never quite sure what they want.”

As a result, Sullivan and her like-minded group had trouble building a recognizable structure. “We have to have very specific things and our leadership style is very traditional, and we have to stabilize the group,” she said. “We were confused. We said, ‘What do we have to build?’ … The task was so open ended that we had a hard time deciding what to do.”

McTague’s group, on the other hand, had little difficulty deciding what to build. An English and creative writing major, McTague said she and her group learned “we were the catalyst and wanted to include everyone, wanted to give back and not leave anyone out.”

When it came to building something with LEGOs, they built a playground. “[In] our group, we started to talk about ideas. Someone built a seesaw and someone said, ‘Let’s build a playground,’ because we wanted to give something back to the community.”

McTague said the exercise taught her “that I love to give back to people and help people, but I don’t have to be the one in charge. I can be a silent motivator. The leader isn’t always the one out in front. They can be in the back, too.”

The exercise also was an “ah ha” moment for Sullivan, an admitted stickler for punctuality and time limits. “Learning that I really like a structured environment and deadlines made me know why I get stressed out when things are not done on time,” she said.

Other workshops Sullivan attended included two on leadership theories, one on teambuilding and another involving personality inventory. McTague took part in clinics on public speaking, immigration and economics, personality and “The Eve Project,” a workshop aimed at taking a stand against sexual violence.

She plans to put what she learned about “The Eve Project” to use at Sweet Briar. “Afterwards, I talked with the women who are the chairs of that and we’re going to be in contact so we can set up something like that here,” she said.

For Sullivan, one of the highlights of the conference was getting to hear keynote speakers Justin Jones and James Castrission talk about a kayaking trip they took across the Tasman Sea from Australia to New Zealand.

Sullivan had heard about the adventurers while studying abroad in Australia. The duo had planned to make the trip in about 30 days, she said, but after being caught in a huge circular current took about twice that long.

At the conference, Jones and Castrission talked about their trip as it related to leadership, about “planning and having faith,” she said. “It was more like a chat than a speech and they had the audience at every single word, hoping they’d be OK, and it was pretty humorous.”

Both Sullivan and McTague said they made friends at the conference that they plan to keep in touch with, and Sullivan, who also attended the 2007 conference, said she hopes it will become a tradition for students in the Leadership Certificate Program.

“It’s a worthwhile event and you get to meet a lot of interesting student leaders from across the country,” she said.

Joan Lucy, LCP director, agreed, noting that it’s one of the strongest student leadership events in the country. “It’s a cool conference,” she said. “I would like to see more of our students attend the conference in the future.”

Nearly 50 colleges, including one from Australia, sent representatives to the National Collegiate Leadership Conference. Most of the students came from schools in the American Southwest and Midwest, and Sullivan and McTague were the only students from a women’s college to attend. Their trip was funded by the SBC Student Government Association’s Leadership Fund.

— Suzanne Ramsey

They are the first to graduate from the Leadership Certificate Program, which was launched in 2005 as a Shape of the Future initiative. Unlike the College’s other courses of study that result in a certificate, this one is administered by and rooted in the co-curricular life office.

Its stated purpose is to prepare women to become responsible and influential members of a global community through academic and experiential learning focusing on the foundations of leadership, individual personal development and organizational theories.

One of the ways it does so is by requiring candidates to think about the connections between leadership opportunities they already have through student organizations, employment and internships; theories learned in the classroom across disciplines; and their additional studies on leadership through the program. Students write a reflective essay at the end of each year to demonstrate they have satisfied the requirement.

“The whole program provides guided reflections to help them understand how those things complement each other,” said Jonathan Green, dean of the College. “It gives them the framework in which to appreciate how the theoretical and practical actually relate to each other.”

Joan Lucy, who took over the program as its first director in 2006, meets with her students every week and has witnessed a few such “ah ha” moments.

“When students talk about how their classes fit with what was discussed in leadership and vice versa — that’s what we want. It’s then relevant to them,” she said. “I just think it really does bring together their whole collegiate experience.”

The program is structured in three phases, each taking roughly two semesters to complete. The three-year commitment allows students to take time off for study abroad or other pursuits.

“In phase one, there’s a lot of focus on self — self awareness, values clarification, personal strengths and interests, developing an individual definition of leadership, as well as some concrete skills such as time management and effective communication,” Lucy said.

“In phase two, we’re taking it to the larger scale of not just self, but others. It moves into the community, group dynamics, the notion of working toward a common goal.

“Phase three delves into the deeper levels of ethics, contemporary issues and leadership. How will they take their exploration of leadership into their fields and their lives.”

An engineer and a dancer will use leadership skills differently, Lucy said, also pointing to what she sees as one of the program’s strengths — its diversity. Among the more than 50 participants, most of the sciences and humanities are represented, which brings many viewpoints to their weekly discussions.

Lucy meets separately with each phase. The meetings include a student-led activity, and often discussion of assigned texts or a guest faculty lecturer, such as President Muhlenfeld or Dean Green.

Second- and third-phase students also may help plan the leadership conference Sweet Briar hosts annually for local college students. With Lucy’s help, the leadership students choose a theme, secure speakers, handle logistics and organize breakout sessions.

The students also help develop the program’s curriculum, which attracted junior Kathryn Lydin. As a first-year, she was participating in LEAP — Leaders: Emerging and Achieving Program, a stand-alone Sweet Briar program that candidates must complete — and decided to go for the certificate.

“I was really excited that the program was just beginning and that we would have a hand in what it would become,” Lydin said.

Lucy said that’s generating a lot of enthusiasm among all her students. “We’re at a neat place because the program exists, it’s established but it’s young and growing, and it’s the energy of the students that is really guiding the growth, the content of the program,” she said.

The program is designed as a continuum. It moves from teaching tangibles such as time management and public speaking to more abstract concepts, such as ethics and styles of leadership.

“The idea that you’re involvement will grow with each phase helps you to get involved on campus,” said Lydin, a history and international affairs major who believes if you’re not involved, you’re not getting the full college experience.

Each phase requires participation in on- or off-campus activities, such as fundraisers, student government, team sports, creative or performing arts, and internships or work-study. Phases two and three require students to take a leadership role in at least one project.

Often the activities dovetail with students’ innate interests, but for Lydin, the leadership program pushed her beyond mere participation. She joined the Sweet Tones in her first semester, fresh out of high school where she rarely talked in class. This year, she is the group’s president and next year, she’ll be musical director.

As her conception of what leadership is grows, her style is evolving, she said. “When I first got here I thought the leader had to be the one person at the top.”

She quickly learned there are behind-the-scenes leaders who contribute in different ways. As the Sweet Tones president, she gathers input from everyone before deciding on a course and feels others respond well to that. She’s also discovered some people “need you to be a different kind of leader.”

As her confidence grows, so does her assertiveness.

“I didn’t think I was a leader until I got involved and realized that I was a more of a behind-the-scenes leader — at first. Now, not so much.”

— Jennifer McManamay