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Presidents Leadership Class
Presidents Leadership Class or PLC is a four-year leadership development program for undergraduate students at CU. As a program, it focuses on academics, community, experience and service. As a part of the cohort of 2020, I am joined by 35 other aspiring students all seeking the best education and experience in leadership. PLC consists of four core classes, which count toward a leadership minor, as well as service requirements and other opportunities. Part of the leadership minor is creating a portfolio that contains pre and post course reflections for each class, you can find them below. I am so honored to be a part of this amazing group of people and can’t wait to see where we go next!
Class Coordinator Internship
I applied to take my leadership experience deeper this year with an internship through the PLC program. I was selected as my cohort's 'class coordinator.' I am in charge of community building events and keeping my cohort connected with itself and the other cohorts. Along with the coordinators of the other classes, I helped plan a square dancing event and community gratitude dinner. I also organized an adventure to a pumpkin patch and a powerpoint night with my cohort and met with the majority of them individually. I will continue this role for the spring semester and am looking forward to more events and connections. I have really enjoyed this position as it has given me a chance to deepen my connection with many other PLCers as well as the professional staff of the program. It has also afforded me the opportunity to step forward and organize the events that allow the connections I treasure to flourish.
1820 Foundations and Applications 2
In PRLC 1820 we dove into exploring the leadership surrounding three main topics: Health & Wellness, Arts & Creativity, and the Environment. Through lectures and projects we explored more deeply what leadership looks like and how different styles can complement different situations. Through a group presentation on Negative Emissions Technologies I came to more fully appreciate the many levels of complexity associated in solving such a multi-faceted issue. Other lectures on topics such as radical community gardening, cancel culture and broadband internet access as well as panels discussing topics from experiences working in medical fields to leadership in schools in 2020 all helped to bring a brander perspective to the leadership that surrounds us.
1810 Becoming a Leader
Pre-Course Reflection
As I begin this journey through PLC, I hope to bring my current leadership skills and experience into a community where I can learn and grow from those around me. I am excited to increase my leadership skill set and learn to bring out the best in my co-workers. Through PLC I hope to gain the knowledge to understand leadership situations on a deeper level and understand what is behind many common leadership challenges. I also hope to learn more about myself through this program so that I can take a fuller advantage of my strengths and strengthen my weaknesses. I strongly believe in the power of different people bringing their viewpoints into shared space and in the critical role of being an organizer of that collaboration. Over the past several years I have discovered a passion for this kind of leadership and I hope to strengthen my abilities to practice it. I look forward to the opportunities ahead of me to practice the leadership skills learned in our classes and to learning how to best follow the leadership of those around me.
I am honored to be a part of the PLC community. While I’m a PLCer, I plan to bring a positive attitude, diligence, and enthusiasm to our classes and to our community. I will strive to become a leader who is effective though motivating people to be passionate about their work and lead in a positive and proactive way. As I enter this community, I choose to accept the responsibility of looking out for my fellow PLCers and my cohort specifically, especially in these unprecedented times. I could not be more honored and excited to be a part of this incredible program and I look forward to all the ways to learn from and contribute to this strong community of leaders.
Post-Course Reflection
Looking back at the semester it’s amazing to see how far we’ve come. We’ve gone from 36 people all trying to figure out what this ‘PLC thing’ is that we are a part of, to a tight-knit community of thinkers and hopeful leaders. A community who isn’t afraid to talk about challenging issues and a community who is driven to make change. We’ve learned about ourselves, and I have grappled with my conflicting desires both to learn about myself using the tools around us, like personality tests, and my deep desire not to be categorized. PLC has given me a myriad of different mirrors through which to see myself and understand my world and I’m deeply grateful to this community for making me question so many pieces of my reality.
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During lectures we learned terms for many of the ideas I intrinsically knew and turned a critical eye towards the systems and values of our society's leadership. We explored the power and shortcomings of many of our ideals of leadership and dove into the myth that being a leader is better than being a follower. We explored what it means to be a leader in a digital world, the advantages of being so interconnected and the foundational pieces of leadership that can get lost when that connection becomes superficial. We bonded over our collective desires to make a difference and our frustration at not knowing where to start. Due to it being 2020 we walked forward on uncertain ground. We learned to attend class from our rooms or common spaces. We discovered the challenges of presenting over Zoom and the hilariousness of dressing up in Zoom formal. I learned to cherish the times when I could meet others in person and learned to accept that having classmates glitch out in the middle of a sentence is just a reality of our times.
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I’m so deeply grateful to PLC for providing me with this incredible community of future leaders and PRLC 1810 for bringing us together to learn about and tackle the challenges of our times.