Leadership Retreat Provides Students With 'Toolbox' of Leadership Skills

 

The morning began with introductions from the Leadership Committee, a group of faculty who meet throughout the course of the year to develop opportunities for students to develop their leadership identities and voices. Led by Grade 10 Dean and English teacher Kate Wade, the group consists of Assistant Dean of Students Susanna Donahue, Grade 8 Dean Josh Shaller, Director of Diversity and Inclusivity John Bower, Associate Director of College Counseling Eliza Matthews, and History teacher Darren Sullivan.

 

The featured speaker was Ope Olukorede ’13, a former School Co-President and member of various clubs and musical ensembles during her time at Rivers. Ope graduated in the spring from Johns Hopkins University, where she was a member of Student Government, a Residential Advisor, a member of an a capella group that sang at various charity events, and helped organize campus activities such as concerts and festivals. She is now pursuing a career in the medical field and is presently engaged with several research projects at Tufts University.

 

Ope’s speech to the student leaders revolved around developing a “toolbox” of leadership skills that would help them be effective in their respective organizations. One area she focused on was commitment and being intentional about how one spends their time.

 

“While at Rivers I was involved in a lot of different groups and sometimes that became really hard for me,” Ope said. “Between travelling to and from Rivers, playing a sport, being in the musical, and all of the homework I found myself wondering ‘how am I going to be committed to each of these clubs and put my all into it to get the best result?’ It was at this point that I realized I needed to find my ‘why.’

 

“I was so passionate about so many ideas – music, community service, student forum – that I waned to do them all! But as a leader you have to realize you can’t do everything at the same time. So I went back to my toolbox and looked into what my role was going to be in each organization, what was my commitment level going to be, and why do I want to be a part of this group? This helped me focus on two or three clubs I could really pour myself into.”

 

After Ope spoke, she led the students through an activity that asked them to answer a anonymous questionnaire that asked them where they grew up, what their family was like, would they consider themselves religious? These sheets were then redistributed and students were asked to stand in groups based on the answer on the sheet they received, which illustrated the varied backgrounds and experiences of other students in the room.

 

The second part of the retreat split the student leaders into groups where they were presented with situations that have come up in clubs, sports, or organizations in independent schools and asked to role-play that situation and how they might respond to it.

 

“We were really impressed with our leaders’ engagement in the role plays,” Ms. Wade said. “They were fresh off summer vacation yet they jumped right in and really pushed themselves to bring to life some truly challenging situations.  One scenario that resonated with the group was a role play on speaking up when you hear language that you feel is offensive or inappropriate. Students worked through how they would speak to each other in person and how they would handle this if it occurred on social media.”

"I appreciated how thoughtful and engaged the students were, both when we broke into groups to debrief the activity Ope led and when we acted out the difficult role play scenarios," Mr. Bower added. "It was also helpful for the students to know that the faculty have been engaged in similar exercises, all working toward the same goal of practicing using our community guidelines for effective dialogue."