Intentionally Integrate Leadership Development Into the Service Curriculum
The Leadership Competencies and Community Engagement Experiences framework provides an overview of documented leadership competency development for each type of service experience to help you make informed decisions about service offerings. In addition, the SLC Servant Leadership framework can help you intentionally infuse leadership competency development into the service curriculum so students can develop essential leadership competencies through their community engagement experiences.
Help Students Discover their Contributions
Just as critical as it is to determine issues students are passionate about, it is just as important to help them discover their capacities for making a difference. If a student is proficient in advocating for a point of view, doing advocacy work might be a good fit. Or the student who excels at mentoring could leverage that strength while making a difference in the lives of others. Using the Student Leadership Competencies Inventory can help students uncover their competency proficiencies and provide them with insight on types of service initiatives that may be a good fit for them.
Market the Leadership Development Value of Community Engagement and Service Learning
Students want to know what they are getting with their time and energy when deciding whether to participate in a program or experience. Identify competencies associated with each community engagement program and experience and include these competencies in the descriptions for marketing and outreach so students can determine if participating would be a fit for their needs and interests. Create a searchable database or master list of all competencies and associated programs so students can easily find competency-based opportunities. In addition, share these intended competencies in the marketing content for programs and activities by posting SLC Marketing Icons on any print or digital media.
Assess Student Leadership Development Through Community Engagement Participation
We know that service matters to both students and the community. Yet, we often have a hard time assessing the student learning impact of service initiatives other than through head counts and satisfaction surveys. What about the leadership learning and development that is occurring with the students who participate? 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 by adding SLC Self-Evaluation Measurements to existing reflections and evaluations.