ASCEND Leadership Program Recap & Thanks!
This past semester, the Office of Student Organizations and Anchor Link launched a new leadership program called ASCEND, which is a semester-long, cohort-based program for juniors who are current and rising leaders in their student organizations and governing councils. The program provided students with opportunities for self-evaluation and reflection, strategies to improve collaboration and purpose within organizations, and tools to engage in critical dialogue regarding larger issues on campus. Not only did the cohort of 14 students have the opportunity to engage in dialogue and hear from tremendous guest speakers, but they were able to form relationships with one another that might not have otherwise been established.
ASCEND is modeled around the Social Change Model (SCM), which focuses on leadership as a process that is ultimately concerned with fostering change. The SCM has seven critical elements: consciousness of self, congruence, commitment, collaboration, common purpose, controversy with civility, and citizenship. These seven core values provided the framework for the ASCEND curriculum. During the final session, the students presented capstone projects focused on a specific topic of interest. The purpose of the capstone project was for students to take action toward this change. The goal was for each group to create an initiative, program, resource, or event to address one part(s) of the issue. Each of the four groups had approximately 15 minutes to present their capstones.
ASCEND would not have been possible without the partnership of several talented colleagues. Thank you to Heather Lefkowitz, Lauren Moon, Krystal Clark, James Crawford, Chris Purcell, and Dr. Cynthia Cyrus for participating in ASCEND. In addition, the Office of Student Organizations and Anchor Link would like to acknowledge and thank Associate Dean G.L. Black for attending and providing great feedback to the students during the final session. Finally, thank you to Dean Bandas and the senior staff of DOS for your guidance and input regarding topics for the capstone projects. Thank you all!
During the spring semester, the ASCEND application will be available for current sophomore students. If you have students in mind or would like more information about ASCEND, please reach out to Whitney Ezell [whitney.ezell@vanderbilt.edu]. We appreciate your partnership and look forward to hosting another fantastic ASCEND cohort during the fall semester in 2016!