"Sisterhood is powerful, the personal is political, women do not trash women..."



-Kaplan and Rose (quoted in "Women and Leadership" book by Jean Lau Chin)

Weekly Activism Log for Service Learning- Week 1

1. Activism: This week my team and I had our first meeting with our community partner. We completed the proposal last week, which specified the game plan of the "What's in Your Wallet?" event-who was taking part, who the community partner was, and a time-line of our future meetings.

During the meeting we were successful in gathering more information on the teaching plan for the event (in particular, the main activity of our event and how we could specialize it towards the theme of leadership). We also took the meeting time to set the next deadline for our event-submitting prompts and discussion questions to ask the group of attendees at our event. A pitfall was communication with e-mail, leading to some frustration, confusion, and a mildly imbalanced work load.

During the next week the team will finish the teaching plan, perform a dry run of the event, and then lead the event next Wednesday.

2. Reflection: Being involved this week in a collaborative style has indeed make me think about how it could help out leaders all the time to be able to work well with others-disregarding the idea that it's simply a "woman's style" of leading and that is the only way they lead. We are conducting an event with college students, who commonly are the subject of experiments dealing with thoughts on leadership, and acts of prejudice. In the book "Through the Labyrinth"  Alice Eagly and Linda Carli note that "when groups are viewed in new roles, people's spontaneous mental associations about them change to correspond to these roles" (Eagly 89). If we can help the attending college students both see women leading this event, and ask them to see how many types of people and potential leaders there are out there, then I feel we will have done a good job.

3. Reciprocity: This opportunity to aid the community (specifically a community close to me and at the center of campus, college students) will also aid my skills of leading, analyzing, encouraging, and constructing an outlet for positive change when it comes to leadership and the reduction of obstacle-inducing stereotypes.

I predict that the whole process of planning, constructing, and performing an event to increase awareness of all types of great leaders for the next generation will help me to feel powerful and awesome for taking part and working towards such a noble goal.

Service Learning Proposal

Contact Information:

Service Learning Proposal For Leadership Seminar entitled “What is in Your Wallet?  How Identity, Social Location, and Privilege Impact Everyday Leaders”

February 17, 2011
Meredith Tweed

WST 3371-0001

Group Members:

Jordan Allen - Facilitator/Planner

Starr Blaisedale - Facilitator/Planner

Ruby Gutierrez - Facilitator/Planner

Kira Peterman - Facilitator/Planner

Judine Tessier - Facilitator/Planner

Community Partner Profile:

Meredith Tweed, University of Central Florida

Address: 

University of Central Florida

Colbourn Hall

Office 411D

4000 Central Florida Boulevard

Orlando, FL 32816

Contact:

Meredith Tweed, mtweed@mail.ucf.edu

Community Partner Mission Statement:

The University of Central Florida is a “public multi-campus metropolitan university that stands for opportunity” and works to meet Central Florida’s “economic, cultural, intellectual, environmental, and societal needs” by supplying education opportunities for the community, as well as doing research and “enriching student development and leadership growth.”  The University also works to address a multitude of issues on many levels, from the local level to the international level (www.ucf.edu “Mission Statement” 2009). 

Political and/or Social Basis for Organization:

The University of Central Florida, as a public institution, is by nature unaffiliated with any political parties.  The University is, however, committed to providing equal opportunities for all students and has a “steadfast commitment to inclusiveness, excellence, and opportunity for all” (www.ucf.edu “Strategic Planning”).  Additionally, the University is committed to the principles of integrity, scholarship, community, creativity, and excellence. 

Needs of Community Partner:

The University of Central Florida needs committed students, faculty, and staff to work in a variety of ways to move towards its mission and achieve its goals. As cultural competence gains notoriety, the importance of involvement in the community becomes a stepping stone to exhibiting the skills necessary to work with a variety of people.  When working with a variety of people, it is necessary to have a working understanding of the position of identities separate from our own.  Thus, the University of Central Florida must facilitate a platform that allows for these “introductions” to occur.

Proposal:

Defining the Problem:

The University of Central Florida is home to students of all different ages, race, culture, and backgrounds. Some are more privileged than others and have grown up having completely different lifestyles. Students may not realize how much they are influenced on a daily basis due to their own unique experiences. Leaders can be more effective if they understand the impact of their own background, and other’s backgrounds, when they lead in areas inside and outside of school. It is important to educate tomorrow's leaders about themselves and what they bring to the community, while encouraging understanding of others to bring about achievement of potential and contributing towards the success of the community.

Propose a plan:
To be an effective leader is to be able to work well with others; a leader must understand the strengths and weaknesses of the community they are leading as well as their own. According to studies done by Dale et. al on information retention rate of individuals, when someone only hears the information they only retain 10% of it, when they hear it and see it they retain 30% of it, and when they hear it, see it, and experience it the retention rate all of a sudden jumps to 90%. To maximize retention, the presentation must be hands on. First we as a group will "unpack" our own wallets then analyze each other’s identities and guess our own strengths and weakness, incorporating auditory and visual learning. Then we will have the audience (with us included) do the same exercise. We will have the group compete to accomplish a certain task that will allow them work together and use everyone's ability. We will then ask them what they have learned about themselves and each other, and how they can use what they learned to better themselves as leaders. We want to educate tomorrow’s leaders about themselves, while encouraging the understanding of others. 

Rationale:

People of all backgrounds can benefit in the future if we teach leaders of tomorrow to acknowledge and embrace their differences and translated them into strengths. “To fully understand why gender stereotypes limit women’s leadership opportunities, we must consider how people think about leaders.” (Eagly et al 90.) If we can get through to UCF students by having them discover and look critically upon their thoughts on leadership, and why they possess them, we can help reduce the stereotyping and discrimination that could surface later in their lives-further evolving how leadership is defined and who it is bestowed upon in the future.

Action Steps:

Our group has accomplished the task of exchanging contact information and formulated the proposal plan. We will provide Professor Tweed with continuous updates of our progress through meeting times (tentatively on Tuesday evenings). Professor Tweed has already submitted an approved proposal that our group will assist in facilitating during the scheduled event on Wednesday, March 2, 2011.  On that day we will introduce the activity: What’s in Your Wallet?  Our group will be required to adjust the activity slightly to bring to discussion other categories of identity that the presentation does not originally address.  Our group is expected to work together and provide a cohesive presentation that raises the awareness of women in leadership and we plan to accomplish this goal by attending the meetings scheduled for planning, and receiving feedback and support from Professor Tweed.

A few group members will also partake in helping YWLP perform their research day on February 26^th, 2011.

Timeline:

02/03/11 - Information between group members exchanged

02/07/11 - Requested submitted proposal for presentation

02/09/11 - Received submitted proposal from Professor Tweed

02/10/11 - Forwarded presentation description to group members

02/12/11 - Group made decision to complete Service Learning Proposal as a group

02/13/11 - Google Docs created for group facilitation

02/14/11 - Received approval for presentation; forwarded to all group members

02/17/11 - Service Learning Proposal submitted

02/22/11 - First group meeting with Professor Tweed: 4:00-5:00 pm

03/02/11 - Scheduled Event: Superheroes: Leading the Way

Presentation: What’s in Your Wallet? How Identity, Social Location, and Privilege Impact Everyday Leaders

               Time: 11:00 am to 11:50 am

*Planning will begin on 02/22/11 and continue, following a tentative schedule, until the day of the presentation.

Bibliography:

Chin, Jean Lau. Women and Leadership: Transforming Visions and Diverse Voices. Malden, MA:

Blackwell Pub., 2007. Print.

Eagly, Alice Hendrickson., and Linda Lorene Carli. Through the Labyrinth: the Truth about How Women Become Leaders. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School, 2007. Print.

University of Central Florida. Web. 17 Feb. 2011.< http://www.ucf.edu/>.

Word Count: 1026 (not including the bibliography)