Student organization representatives recharged their leadership skills at BOLT, a new training session designed to develop stronger student leaders on campus.
Sponsored by the Student Activities Office (SAO), Bradley Organization Leadership Training invited leaders from registered student organizations to attend a training session Sunday, Sept. 14.
Opening presentations by Director of Student Activities Tom Coy and SAO Graduate Assistant Kaci Green focused on club management and campus resources. The training session was part of an initiative by SAO to better educate student leaders.
“I noticed student organizations were struggling with the same issues over and over again,” Green, who spearheaded the event as part of a graduate school project, said. “[I] thought a big training for all of our student organizations could give them all of the tools and resources necessary to be the best leaders they could be.”
Coy and Green’s presentations informed students about room reservation and flyer posting policies, gave ideas for publicizing events and offered tips for fundraising.
Leaders from 37 of the 240 registered student organizations attended the event, which featured breakout sessions with information on specific areas of interest.
Topics in the sessions included personality and values assessment, marketing and fundraising, working with the outside community, positive leadership qualities and tech crew and SABRC.
The night concluded with a workshop on officer transitions, a process that may cause difficulties for student organizations from year to year according to Coy.
Tips for creating a smooth transition included writing descriptions of officer responsibilities, holding earlier elections so past leaders will be available to help and compiling all user information and passwords to pass on to appropriate members.
The Edge student radio Station Manager Ethan Hoerr said his organization frequently experienced issues with changing leadership, so the officer transition training was useful to him.
“We are trying to implement a lot of new things with The Edge that will need to be tended to now and continuing into the future, beyond the time I graduate in May,” Hoerr said. “Knowing this, and learning from my own experience figuring out the responsibilities of Station Manager, I will be very intentional about transitioning the next Station Manager into leadership so that there won’t be any hiccups.”
Assistant Director of Student Activities Lauren Smetana said she believes Bradley fosters student leadership through the relationships between student affairs staff members, advisors and organization members.
“In my work with ACBU, I like to have conversations with [students] about their goals and challenge them to take on roles or do tasks that are outside their comfort zones so they can continue to grow as leaders,” Smetana said. “Bradley is not afraid to let students take ownership of their projects and events, which really forges student leadership on campus.”
Students who missed the training and are interested in learning more about organization resources may visit SAO’s Resources page on Bradley’s website.
