I'm a firm believer that great leaders are made, not born. Perhaps some are more gifted in sensing the pulse of the group but without great effort natural talent can only go so far. I certainly did not consider myself a leader for the most part of my life. Sure, I was the class president in 5th grade because of my test scores but I did have not the confidence or the understanding of leadership to really direct the group to make positive changes. I was a man of few words. When I moved to America eight years ago I became a man of even fewer words. Without knowing any English I could not function at all let alone communicate to lead. The idea of becoming a leader seemed far-fetched to me. I remember once I sat at the back of the middle school auditorium watching student government election speeches. Although I had no idea what they were saying but I imagined myself on the stage wishing that I was as eloquent and confident as they were.
In high school I had the fortune of a supportive environment. I was able to “come out of my shell” as my teachers put it. I seized many opportunities. I was the vice president of the Chinese club and the student government president. Through those positions I gained some confidence and communication skills. But I knew college was totally another level, especially at top liberal arts schools like Haverford. I was ready to be humbled by the people I would meet in college. I did not expect myself to gain a leadership position in college, for the first year at least.
The first semester at Haverford I indulged myself in extracurricular sports: I auditioned and joined the DUI dance crew, I took African dance, mui thai boxing and Jujutsu. I was happily occupied. There were many opportunities to venture out of my extracurricular sports to take on a leadership position. However, being a freshman, I told myself I wasn't ready. But I never stopped paying attention to those opportunities. While checking my email, the headline “Student Rep needed for Faculty Committee on Admissions” caught my attention. The job description was very enticing. The student representative can put items on the agenda and have an equal say as other committee members. The committee consists of faculties and the director of admissions and financial aid (the guy who admitted me to Haverford!). Again, I hesitated in silence. My heart quickened just by thinking about how would I convince my six interviewers that I should have the job. Frankly, I was afraid.
I decided to apply for the position anyway. I should mention that when I first ran for the student government president in high school I lost terribly. I did not know how to face myself and the people in the school. It took me a year to recover and finally find the courage to run again. The second time my opponents lost terribly. This experience has taught me that the belief that I was not ready or the fear of rejection from a position would prevent me from ever getting started. So I went to my interview with fear and hopes. The interview was intense and I couldn't remember much of what I said in the interview. But I vividly remember the elevating euphoria right after the interview. I must did something right.
The position of student representative on the Faculty Committee on Admission has been an important capital for me to apply for other leadership positions on campus. Gradually, I have a resume-worthy list of other extracurricular activities: founding member of the Leadership Development Committee, president of Asian Students Association and president of Amnesty International. So when is a good time to start gaining leadership experiences? Like yesterday.
Please don't get the impression that I had an easy time serving those clubs and committees. Here is an article I wrote for the Leadership Development Committee's newsletter that explains some of my struggles and rewards.
From: http://www.haverford.edu/activities/leadership/files/Rufus_Leadership_Newsletter_09.pdf
Running ASA: In Search of a Leadership Bible
I have been Co-leading Asian Students Association (ASA) with Jen Phung since Spring 2008. When we took over ASA, my hope at the beginning was to merely maintain it. Despite my ambition, I was a freshman needing to learn how to run an organization at Haverford from scratch. Unavoidably, I made some mistakes such as advertise events too late or rush Jason McGraw, the student activities coordinator (a big no-no). ASA put on few new events, mostly small scale cultural activities. The only big event ASA did was the Pan-Asian Cultural Show last year. It was a success. But overall, I did not get the sense that ASA was vibrant and active enough.
Now move on to Fall semester of sophomore year. New freshmen! I was anxious to recruit them. Membership and retention were my constant worries. Nothing really happened in the first few weeks. We introduced ourselves and I asked what kind of activities they wanted to see happen. Very often, there was silence. I worried too much about membership retention that I hesitated to ask them to take on a task if they did not volunteer. By then, I realized the way ASA was running was not very effective.
ASA's structure was too loose; there wasn't a strong sense of community; and most importantly, ASA lacked an clear overarching vision. I wanted ASA to be big and influential. But that was too vague to be productive. Then I thought about ASA as an affinity group. One of it's main goals should be to create, maintain and expand support networks for it's members and Asian students at Haverford in general. By support network, I don't just mean a safe space for members to talk about important issues. It includes any resources that can help them thrive at Haverford.
ASA has been diligent in asking funding from the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship, the Office of Multicultural Affairs and the Student Council to go to conferences and put on different events. But I hesitate to measure ASA's success only by how many big events we put on or how many people came to our events. For example, we brought in comedian Eliot Chang last semester. The Founder's Great Hall was filled with over 200 people. It was certainly a success, but a fleeting one. I always felt some sense of emptiness after I put on a big event. Now I know why. It's the problem that every student leader is facing: what would my organization become when I graduate from Haverford?
My focus becomes building ASA' structure. I know only a solid structure can carry out ASA's vision and ASA future leaders' vision. I'll list some of the structural changes we made.
Most of the active members have a position (Coordinator of Current Affairs, Coordinator of Community service, Public Relations, ASA Lounge Monitors, Coordinator of Special Events, Media Director...etc). Those positions are being constantly refined and substantiated.
We have an agenda for every meeting, usually one page long.
A central communication method. We used ASA.Haverford@gmail.com as our official email. We also use Google Doc and Google Calendar extensively. The calendar is for notification of events and meetings. Google Doc is very convenient for internal plannings and it also serves as an archive for all our institutional documents (Agendas, posters, sign-up sheets...etc). All of our active members have the password so they can easily add and modify events and documents.
We created a wordpress blog ASAHaverford@wordpress.com to publicize what we do. Our Media Director is in charge of the blog. Now the blog is still under construction. By early this summer we'll have a substantial amount of posts and media. Again, all our active members have the password.
End-of-year leadership planning marathon. All members and interested people are invited to this planning marathon. We'll sit down and plan things out for the next semester and the entire year. We don't leave until we're done. I figure the planning marathon would last 5 hours, or longer.
Structure helps to build a sense of community. Gmail and Wordpress allow information to be shared faster. But more importantly, ASA becomes a collective project instead of co-heads' burden.
No comments:
Post a Comment