Integrate a “Leadership” Framework for Intentional Student Development
What leadership competencies do students need to develop to best leverage their capacity for getting a job and being successful in the world of work? For impacting their communities? For engaging in global leadership? The Student Leadership Competencies® have been mapped to a variety of career, service, retention, learning, and leadership frameworks. For example, if you use the Social Change Model in Student Involvement, just use the SLC Social Change Model of Leadership Development framework and design your programs around the competencies linked to that model. Using these frameworks allows you to narrow your focus to the competencies that matter for your programs and offers a universal language across multiple frameworks so your approach is consistent regardless of the frameworks you use.
Assess Leadership Development Through Participation in Campus Activities
Campus activities, events, and programs can range from social to educational to recreational to cultural. Yet, we often have a hard time assessing the impact of these programs other than through head counts and satisfaction surveys or specific evaluations for programs that cannot be easily compared across programs. By aligning your programs and experiences with leadership competencies, you can know what students should be developing as a result of participation and easily assess their leadership learning. Use SLC Self-Evaluation Measurements to provide consistency in measurement and compare data across programs.
Make Organizational Involvement an Intentional Learning Opportunity
We know that students learn and develop by participating in student organizations. But, how can we help make this learning intentional and then accurately measure it? Have student leaders and/or organizational members take the Student Leadership Competencies Inventory to self-assess their competency proficiency and create a competency-based professional development plan related to their roles and organizational involvement. In addition, using the Student Leadership Competencies assessment tools can provide insight to help advise and coach students on their leadership development, and the SLC Self-Evaluation Measurements can help you assess student learning and development.
Market the Leadership Development Value of Student Organizations
Students want to know what they are getting with their time and energy when deciding whether to get involved on campus. Have student organization members identify competencies associated with their organizational mission and include these in written form or using the SLC icons in the organization description for marketing and outreach. In addition, by creating a database of all organizations and their associated competencies, prospective members can search organizations by competency to determine a fit for their needs and interests.
Help Students Identify Leadership Roles that Fit
We know that some students excel at an employee role at the front desk whereas others find their fit with roles such as programming board chair or student organization mentor. How can we help students determine organization and leadership roles that are a good fit for them? By defining leadership competencies associated with each leadership role, students can be made aware of the competencies they need to be proficient in those roles. This can help them determine which roles align with the competencies they have or would like to acquire, and ultimately select roles that best fit for them.
Intentionally Design, Deliver, and Assess Student Leader Training
How can we make sure that our student leader training is designed to help students be successful in their specific roles? Using pre-established curriculum, you can design and deliver intentional training grounded in the competencies students need for their roles and use standardized assessment measurements to assess learning and development.