The Cougar's Byte

Issue date: 9/24/07 Section: Campus News

Media Credit: Kaitlyn Davies This years Emerging Leaders: Laura Aguilar, Scott Behnke, Nadirah Bradley, Jessica Clayton, Rachel Felton, Tilisa Gazze, Jasmine Grant, Kevin Jala, Kimberly Moskowitz, Katie Pagan, Oliver Pinkard, Candy Ruiera, and Diana Truyengue

During the Fall semester many things begin like classes, student groups meetings and the start of Emerging Leaders. Emerging Leaders is a leadership program at Kean University for freshman students. The program was developed to foster the abilities of students who already showed leadership ability in high school. Students are informed about the program in the summer, when they receive an application to join based on past leadership experiences. Once they are accepted into the program they have a list of dates for meetings and a retreat. The retreat is a day filled with fun and laughter. It's a high and low ropes course where students come back feeling refreshed and secure about their positions on campus.

The program meets three times per semester with a graduation ceremony at the end. During the Fall semester, the participants get to know each other and the resources available to them at Kean University. Once the Spring semester comes, speakers are brought in to talk with the students about how to be a leader and deal with diverse groups of people. The program is sponsored by the Office of Student Life and Leadership Development (SLLD) and it is coordinator is Sandra Espinal. This year she is thrilled to have yet another group of young leaders to help to the top. The program is a great place for student leaders to meet other student leaders and discuss ways to make Kean an even better university.

Emerging Leaders is just one part of a leadership series given by SLLD. Once these students graduate from Emerging Leaders they can move up to Established Leaders and then the final program, G.O.L.D. All of these programs build on one another and the tools gained are indispensable. Each student who goes through the leadership series never regrets a single minute of any meeting and these new Emerging Leaders will soon understand why.

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