Student leaders and staff co-create change on campus
“The workforce is so collaborative these days,” says Robert Taliano, interim manager at Career and Planning Services. “Our student leaders gain experiential learning that puts them ahead of the game.”
“We’re changing the culture of Frosh week, making it more inclusive,” says Dilani Abeywickrama, a fourth-year Mechanical Engineering undergraduate and student leader at Concordia’s orientation this past September.
“It was gratifying to see the positive social impact. When I graduate, I definitely want to do something positive in the world. It’s not ours. We’re just renting it.”
Abeywickrama, like many students, is keen to lead the kind of life that has social impact. Working collaboratively, the Dean of Students Office and student association leaders have established a framework to co-create change. A positive consequence of this work is the development of leadership skills that prospective employers appreciate.
“Part of our vision is to build agency,” says Alex Oster, coordinator of student engagement in the Dean of Students Office. “We want students to be agents of change. So, when we’re with the student executives, we model the kind of behaviour and organizational style that we’d like to see in them — collaborative, reciprocal, low-judgement, high-trust and inclusive.”
The culture around orientation and frosh was identified a few years ago as a target for change. Staff from the Dean of Students Office initiated a series of casual off-site meetings with student leaders — referred to as the “The Burritoville Diaries” — to facilitate conversation around the issues, but they faced a barrier to realizing impact.
These efforts re-started from the beginning each year with every new group of incoming student leaders. Any ground they’d gained was lost. That’s starting to change.
Culture shift away from ‘peer partiers’
“Now, we have a goodwill relationship in which the outgoing student executive transitions the culture change and co-creation approach to the incoming leaders,” says Terry Kyle, manager of student life in the Dean of Students Office.
“That means we’re not starting from zero. For example, the incoming Frosh leaders don’t see themselves as simply peer partiers anymore. There has been a culture shift and they’re seeing themselves as responsible for knowing university protocols, responsible for harm-reduction training, responsible to make Frosh more inclusive and less alcohol centred.”
Andrew Woodall, dean of Students, sees a dramatic change in the relationship between student leaders and university stakeholders.
“Student leaders actually sit down and talk with Hospitality and Security now, with us, to figure out the best way to handle events,” says Woodall.
“We challenge the students’ assumptions about what a leader is. A leader is not only an elected official, but also somebody who enables others to be their best selves and encourages agency. It’s the kind of thing you carry with you throughout your career,” says Woodall.
Orientation isn’t the only opportunity the Dean of Students Office has to develop leadership skills in students while co-creating change. The Sexual Assault Resource Centre (SARC) is part of their office, as is Alternative Spring Break. Student groups also collaborate with the office on training, with the Server Intervention Program and bystander intervention.
“When students see the impact they can have, it’s deeply meaningful for them,” says Kyle. “Students are proud when they’ve intervened to improve an event. They come and tell us about it.”
Leveraging leadership
Leadership experiences on campus often build an appetite for activism and a desire to facilitate further impact. Today’s job market is retooling to accommodate the millennial generation’s desire to participate in social enterprise and make a difference through actionable change.
Those employers, in turn, value the collaborative leadership skills students cultivate on campus.
“Prospective employers are well aware of what student leaders learn along the way,” says Robert Taliano, interim manager at Career and Planning Services, part of Concordia's Student Success Centre.
“A student who is an on-campus leader can develop many skills to one day be a more effective manager in engineering, business, community work or almost every career domain. The workforce is so collaborative these days. Our student leaders gain experiential learning that puts them ahead of the game.”
Learn more about the programs at the Dean of Students Office.