I [Am a Student Leader] in the Corridor

It's Better to Light a Candle than Curse the Darkness!

-Doug Pearson, Dean of Students, Mercer University 

 

This past weekend, Mercer University's former vice president, Ike Ekeke, and Campus Life Intern and recent Mercer graduate, Emily Halstead, put together the Mercer Student Leadership Retreat.  Carrie Ingoldsby, Campus Life Director and Cindy Drudy, Campus Life Assistant Director, oversaw the weekend's events, but this year it was run by Mercer's student leaders.  Almost 30 Mercer students traveled back to the campus Friday, July 27, to begin the retreat.  I was thrilled to be a part of it and see what I would learn from the experience.  After a few icebreakers and short introductions, the students got acquainted with one another and were split into groups.  Mercer graduate Deborah Ayoade, who was involved in several different organizations while at Mercer, also came to Macon to assist.

Groups were given multiple tasks to help them identify their strengths and weaknesses as individual leaders.  Students were classified into groups according their leadership styles: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness.  There were three people in the dominant group, but the majority of the students were evenly split into the other groups.  We all realized the differences and similarities between our personalities and tried to understand one another.  Students also identified goals among their organizations and learned of different ways to collaborate with one another.  Saturday morning started with a rope course that incorporated many mental and physical challenges.  Despite the early morning and brutal heat, we managed to have a great time with one another while learning about integrity and teamwork.

Later in the day, things got serious as we broke down barriers between one another through a challenge called, Earthquake.  The goal was to order the tasks that a group should perform when an earthquake happens.  However, the ultimate lesson learned was to see how others perceive us while actively working as a team.  This exercise pointed out the good and the bad to see how we each can improve our ways of leading, organizing, and collaborating.  Cross the Line was another exercise that helped the students see past the people we thought we all knew.  By "crossing the line" if you fell into a certain category, we all learned more about each other and grew closer.  We all let down our walls for a second and encouraged one another to shine our own light.

By the end of the retreat, we had all grown closer bonds with students we may have never talked to, if we had we not attended the retreat.  This school year, Mercer University should anticipate more collaboration between student organizations and a few more waves across campus from faces that may have otherwise never known how much support they had from their peers.