Since high school, I have been involved in many leadership roles. However, I don’t know if the way I lead is the “best” way to lead, especially now at Amherst, where I am facing a more diverse population. Hence, I was so excited to see that Amherst announced the establishment of the Mammoth Leadership Academy. “The Academy is a premier leadership development program through Amherst College Student Affairs designed to empower students with the skills, mentorship, and experiences they need to lead with confidence and purpose. Through a selective, cohort-based certificate program and open sessions, students will cultivate essential leadership qualities and skills, preparing them to lead within their communities, on campus, and beyond.”
At our opening ceremony, I was very touched by what President Elliot advised us to think about as leaders. He gave the example of when he was a student at Amherst, some students tabled at Val everyday to advocate for anti-sexual violence. More and more students joined their tabling to show support for the initiative. They changed the campus climate completely. As a student at Amherst, as a leader myself, how can I make our community better? I kept this question in mind throughout our sessions.
Every Friday, we would gather for one and a half hours to learn about and discuss openly a specific topic, such as implicit bias, conflict resolution, impostor syndrome, etc. In particular, during the implicit bias session, the facilitator gave specific examples at Amherst that got us to face our implicit biases and be more open to discuss and recognize them. One of the most important things I learned in the academy was to be vulnerable. The more vulnerable we are, the more open we can be to accepting different perspectives and being less judgmental. Through this process, I learned so much from the different people I met at the Academy–the way they talk, listen to each other, help each other out, collaborate, etc. I only knew a few people in the academy before it started. Now, I’ve talked with nearly everyone at least once and become more willing to talk with people I don’t know to learn about their ideas and perspectives.
Moreover, we need to team up and plan and implement an Action Project that addresses some issue and/or experience at Amherst to improve our campus. Our group got inspired to investigate the overall academic experience at Amherst. As a liberal arts college, we notice that some students really refuse the idea of taking courses across the STEM and Humanities disciplines. There are increasingly more students in one department, and significantly fewer students in some other departments. We are very interested in investigating what contributed to this difference, such as implicit biases, social norms, institutional problems, and how it can be addressed. More results will be shared once we have collected the data and conducted more interviews with students, faculty, and staff. 🙂 Stay tuned!
Overall, it has been a thought-provoking journey at the Leadership Academy! It was great to meet all the talented students at Amherst who are interested in learning about leadership and applying those skills in our clubs, academics, careers, and even just daily life.