The Leadership Certificate is a one year self-developmental process that helps you to connect your co-curricular experiences and reflect upon them through a leadership lens. After registering, you complete a self-assessment, set personal goals for the year, meet regularly with a Leadership Mentor, and identify new opportunities to learn and practice leadership skills. The process concludes with the presentation of a creative final project which showcases what you have learned over the course of the year and how this has improved your leadership ability. Upon completion, the certificate is recognized on your co-curricular transcript which can be shared with the college community and future employers.

Below are listed the different components of the experience.

Submit Your Proposal: This initial registration form serves not only as a registration for the 2012-13 Leadership Certificate, but also as an initial point of contact between you and your Leadership Mentor. It’s a quick and easy way of introducing yourself to us!

Get Assigned a Leadership Mentor: After registering, you will be assigned a Leadership Mentor to help guide you through the process. Your Leadership Mentor serves as your primary point of contact and ensures that the process is tailored specifically to your goals and needs. It should be noted that Leadership Mentors are not experts, but are a trained resource equipped with tools to help you succeed.

Complete Your Self-Assessment: As you begin your journey in completing the leadership certificate, it is essential that you deepen your self-awareness. You will be given access to an online assessment that evaluates how well and how frequently you practice various core leadership competencies. This tool is designed to help you realistically assess your leadership ability in relation to the GLC’s Leadership Model. Upon completion of the assessment, the results will provide you with a starting point from which to design your leadership certificate experience.

Set up Your Consultations: Shortly after the registration deadline, a Leadership Mentor will contact you to set up an initial consultation. Consultations last for no longer than an hour and are provide the opportunity for you and your Leadership Mentor to work through the certificate process. Although only three formal consultations are required each semester, it is highly recommended that you remain in regular contact with your Leadership Mentor throughout the semester (informal meetings can be very beneficial and are strongly encouraged).

Review the Leadership Menu: This document will be handed out at the first consultation and gives a list of several leadership-related experiences on campus. The Leadership Menu categorizes experiences into either “Leadership Experiences,” or “Participant Experiences” from which you can choose to focus on throughout the year. The menu reveals how to get involved and which competencies you can develop in each.

Submit Your Plan: This document serves as your roadmap for your learning journey. Its main function is to help you set personal goals and actions plans to focus on throughout the year. This is discussed during your first consultation. You have the ownership to choose which experience you will participate in based on the feedback you receive from the self-assessment.

Attend Leadership 101: You are required to participate in a 90 minute Leadership 101 workshop, led by GLC Staff. This session will consist of an introduction to the GLC Leadership Model, foundational leadership theory, and a number of engaging leadership development exercises. It is also a great opportunity to meet other students who are participating in the Leadership Certificate.

Identify Your Accountability Ally: To help make your commitment to the leadership certificate more real, you will to identify a person in the within the College community who will help keep you focused on your goals. This person could be a professor, a staff, or community member.

Complete your Final Project: The final project is designed to be a creative reflection in which you showcases your experiences and reflect upon the skills and competencies you have developed. It is very customizable and unique in that there is no one way to complete the project. You can be as creative, imaginative, and resourceful as you want. You will want to focus on tying all of your experiences together as well as tying them back to the competencies you set out to improve on in your proposal. It can also serve as a “portfolio” that can be shown to future employers or graduate schools as evidence of participating in the Leadership Certificate process.

Who should I contact?

Jo Evans, Matt Maynard, Dave Gilmore