Inspiring Motivator
changes the way people think and feel about themselves so they are moved to act in ways that achieve a specific and immediate goal
Facing Project Internship (Summer and Fall 2014)
The summer after my junior year, I had the privilege of joining with one of the faculty members of the Staley School of Leadership Studies on a project she had begun through the Facing Project. The Facing Project is a national nonprofit whose mission is, “connecting people through stories to strengthen communities.” Essentially, the national nonprofit provides a toolkit to help partner communities engage in a storytelling project to address whichever issue or concern they feel is most essential or strategic for their community to “face”. My faculty supervisor had begun the project the previous fall identifying the issue of hunger in our community. That spring, she mobilized her class to go to a local food pantry to interview and collect the stories of members of the Manhattan community who were experiencing food insecurity.
When I joined in on the project, the stories had already been written and the work that was remaining was to edit the stories and format them into a book and to plan a community event to share the stories. For my faculty supervisor, she was excited to have someone to help her finish these technical pieces. At that point, she had already committed a year to the project and was ready to see some tangible results. There were a lot of details that it would have been easy to get lost in, but my supervisor repeatedly thanked me for the perspective I brought, and the reminders about and commitment to the purpose of the work we were doing. When my supervisor was struggling to balance the cost of printing books, decisions about quantity, and format I encouraged her to take a step back and remember why we were creating a book, drawing her attention to the power of the stories and their ability to speak for themselves. I affirmed that we wanted to create a quality product, but helped set a priority for the smaller details. This pattern held true in planning for the event. There were a thousand things to consider as far as audience, décor, refreshments, program, etc. Again and again I returned with my supervisor to the mission statement and asked, “Does this detail help us advance the mission to connect people? Does this decision highlight the stories of food insecurity and the people who are experiencing it? Will this create space and opportunity to strengthen our community?” By asking these types of questions we achieved the same results, a book was published, an event was held, but in the context of a broader vision and goal.
Discipleship (Fall 2012-Spring 2015)
Serving on the leadership team with Christian Challenge, I had the honor of co-facilitating a weekly bible study. In addition, I met with girls one-on-one in a type of discipleship relationship. What this looked like was an intentional friendship in which I sought to know the girls deeply, to process life, to encourage and support, to provide tools and accountability, and to equip them to invest in others. I really think that presence, steady and consistent pursuit, says a lot to people about the value you see in their lives. Identity was something that we talked a lot about in these times together. My high opinion of someone is not enough motivation for him or her to face all of the challenges of life and ultimately to be a servant to others. I challenged the way my girls thought about themselves and the purpose of their lives, not by my standard or ideals, but by pointing them to the Word of God, the truth that we had individually and corporately chosen to stake our lives on. Oftentimes, we would talk about a specific challenge, for example a difficult roommate, lack of discipline in prayer life, jealousy of a friend. These then would become our goals—the areas, attitudes, behaviors, we desired to see growth in. The motivation I provided was in my own confession, my willingness enter in and partner with them in these change areas, and my commitment to pointing them back to the truth of their identity.
LEAD 212 Class Leader (Fall 2013-Spring 2014)
The structure of the introductory leadership course is divided into two parts. The first part is a large lecture taught by a lead professor (Staley School of Leadership Studies faculty member) and the second part is divided twelve-person learning communities facilitated by a class leader (junior or senior in the program who is selected and trained for the role). Once a week, all of the class leaders for a section met together along with our lead professor to evaluate that week’s class and learning and to plan for the next week. As a class leader we were provided some structure and expectations in terms of lesson planning, grading standards, etc., but also allowed a lot of flexibility and entrusted with the responsibility of making decisions based on what would be best for our own group of students. During these meetings, there was a lot of opportunity for collaboration, sharing wins and losses, and brainstorming for future sessions.
Something I often found myself doing was questioning our role as class leaders. As part of our job description, each of us knew we were required to grade our students’ papers. When we would talk in our planning times, class leaders would often share their frustrations with the lack of effort or depth of thought exhibited in their students’ papers. I acknowledged that we were asking our students to engage in critical reflection, but then asked in what ways we were modeling, explicitly teaching, or correcting critical reflection? I challenged my peers to not only see themselves as “graders”, as someone disconnected from the work or product and only responsible for making marks on a rubric, and instead see themselves as “models” practicing critical reflection in the questions they asked and ways they engaged in learning community, “teachers” with the skill and authority to break it down and point out the pieces of critical reflection as they occurred in group discussion or as they were explaining paper requirements, and “informers” who were able to identify where students were at in their ability to think and write critically, and then in their feedback to provide the scaffolding necessary to move their students one step deeper in their thought.