I am fortunate to have many great memories of my time at
Southeast. Many of these were with outstanding faculty and some great mentors
outside the classroom that all helped shape my personal and professional
development. Now, many years later, some of these same program and
opportunities that were afforded to me have been placed in my care as the
Assistant Vice President for Student Success. This week, I met with one of the
professional staff member within my areas, Megan Randolph, Coordinator for
Leadership Development, to learn about how well our leadership programs are
doing.
Megan shared a great amount of positive information, but one
that stood out to me was our Emerging Leaders program. I participated in this program in 1994, as
did my wife Tonya. Now, almost 20 years later, I was hearing about the success
of the program and how it is still impacting students at Southeast. One of the
items that caught my attention was Megan’s efforts to assess the program and
its impact on students. Assessment in student affairs can be a challenge, as
isolating the independent variable can be difficult and since we are working
with students you never have identical control and test groups. Even with these
limits, there is solid evidence of the program’s impacts. Listed below are some
of the items that showed the greatest change and where the change was statistically
significant level was at a .05 level.
Note: Questions are on a 5 point
scale, 1 being seldom or rarely, 5 being very frequently.
Question #1- I am comfortable when there is no plan or instructions.
o
Pre-test Average= 3
o
Post-test Average= 3.8
o
Change= Statistically significant improvement of
.8 or 20%
Question #11- I analyze all the facts and information available before
making a decision.
o
Pre-test Average= 3.7
o
Post-test Average= 4.45
o
Change= Statistically significant improvement of
.75 or 18.75%
Questions #19- When I delegate responsibilities to others, I allow them
to complete the task alone.
o
Pre-test Average= 3
o
Post-test Average= 3.9
o
Change= Statistically significant improvement of
.9 or 22.5%
Question #20- I specifically set aside time in my weekly schedule to
study.
o
Pre-test Average= 2.6
o
Post-test Average= 4
o
Change= Statistically significant improvement of
1.4 or 35%
Question #23- I provide opportunities for others to take on leadership
responsibilities.
o
Pre-test Average= 3.2
o
Post-test Average= 4.1
o
Change= Statistically significant improvement of
.9 or 22.5%
There are improvements in other areas; however, these five
are highlighted to provide an example of the success of the Emerging Leaders
program. I think as an institution we should be proud of this program, one that
dates back to the 1980s and one that shows both qualitative and quantitative
evidence of its success. I have a personal bias, I think question 11 about
critical thinking is the one we should be
proudest of, as this is one area we need more of in our culture (just
one person’s humble opinion).
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