By Jeremy Castro
Associate Editor
St. Bonaventure University hosted its 2019 Leadership Summit, giving students a crash course in several leadership aspects.
The event, presented by the Career and Professional Readiness Center and the Center for Activities, Recreation and Leadership, on Feb. 2 spanned three hours in the Doyle Hall Dining and Trustees’ rooms and gave students insight into being a leader, culminating with Laurie Branch, president of Iroquois Group and Board of Trustee’s member, as keynote speaker.
Marie Torrey, career counselor at the CPRC and co-coordinator of the event, expressed why it is important for students to participate in these types of events.
“The summit is a one-day leadership immersion for all students to gain new information and cultivate skills not only for their own development but to also bring that forward in their current or future leadership,” Torrey said.
Torrey, along with co-coordinator Robbie Chulick and graduate support staff members, Carlie Jacque and Jared Roosa, organized the event, the second of its kind at Bonaventure.
Torrey expressed her hopes as to what attending students learned from the event.
“We hope students found this to be a high-impact learning event that will assist in their leadership development,” Torrey said.
Chulick, assistant director of CARL, also gave his thoughts as to the importance of the conference and what students could have gotten out of it.
“We hope that students who went to this summit considered it a high-impact learning practice in which they were able to have meaningful conversations and interactions outside of the classroom on a Saturday afternoon that assisted in their own personal and professional development,” Chulick said.
Jayda Muniz, a freshman sociology major, attended the summit and felt events like these can help students become better leaders.
“Most people who want to be leaders don’t necessarily know how to do it, so I think having these sorts of summits can actually lead them into learning more about how to become the leader they want to be,” Muniz said.
The summit also related to the EDGE program, a certification giving Bonaventure sophomores, juniors and seniors opportunities to develop professional skills.
“The goal of the EDGE program is for participating students to develop professional skills sought by employers and graduate schools,” said Torrey. “Leadership and ability to work in a team are two of the top skills employers seek. The summit gave EDGE participants the opportunity to self-identify some of their leadership skills and how they can become better leaders based on the information shared from the presenters.”
EDGE students participate in six one-hour seminars over the span of a year.
Lizz Freeman, a junior theater major and EDGE participant, found the summit to be much more than a requirement.
“I went to the leadership summits because I am part of the EDGE program. It [counted] for two seminars and kind of seemed like a nice way to get those two seminars in together,” said Freeman. “But I also liked the idea of a big collect of people who wanted to be there being there…as much as anyone thinks they know about leadership, there’s still something to learn.”
At the end of the event, students were encouraged to give the summit feedback, which will help coordinators plan future sessions.
“Each year we ask for student feedback via an evaluation, which we review and process the data received,” Torrey said. “We use the information going forward in planning the session topics and presenters for next year’s program.”
The coordinators believe this type of summit can become an annual event.
“We definitely want to keep this an annual tradition. The summit held last Saturday was the second year we had this event, and we definitely will plan another one next spring,” said Chulick.
castroja17@bonaventure.edu
