By infusing the Student Leadership Competencies® into multiple functional areas within the Division of Student Affairs at Fairfield University, we have enhanced our student’s progression towards Career Readiness. We have reengineered our leadership development programs and student leadership roles to focus on competency development.
- On our campus New Student Leaders (NSL) facilitate small groups during our orientation program as well as instruct our First Year Experience course. The training and development for this position has a full competency model approach from start to end. Students selected for this leadership role complete a pre and post competency development assessment. They participate in a competency development mentoring experience with a professional staff member. All training associated with this role has been assigned specific competencies that are assessed for gains in one or more of the Knowledge, Value, Ability, and Behavior dimensions.
- We have established the Collaborative Leadership Development Committee to cultivate a student leadership experience that provides a richer and more meaningful sense of pride and integrity. Committee discussions focus on developing University-wide leadership outcomes for students and methods used to promote, select, train, develop, support, hold accountable, and assess our students in leadership roles. One of the primary charges of this committee has been the identification of a core set of competencies that students should be developing while in their leadership roles.
- The foundation of our First Year Leadership Development Program, Redefining Leadership, has been enhanced by the addition of a competency development approach. Each leadership lesson presents students with specific competencies they will be working towards developing and at the end of each lesson students utilize an electronic self-evaluation tool via their mobile phones to report their gains in one or more of the four dimensions. Results are shared with instructors and complied into a competency development map for each student at the end of the program.