Freshmen will discuss leadership and their roles at the College in a new program created and facilitated by other students. The Leadership Attitudes and Behaviors program, launching on Jan. 27, will combine peer bonding and student-facilitated discussions to encourage students to consider new meanings of leadership.
The program, open only to members of the Class of 2017, consists of three 90-minute-long discussion sessions called “Know Yourself,” “Know Your Friends” and “Know Your Community.” The program also replaces one of its weekly in-person meetings with an online activity.
The 12 student facilitators have diverse backgrounds and personalities, program founder and coordinator Austin Boral ’16 said. The facilitators’ varied experiences are meant to complement each other and reveal how different people with personality types can all become leaders.
“We’re seeking to solve a problem,” Boral said. “Leadership has been conceived as a concrete idea, under only one standard of leadership, which is not true. There are many paths towards leadership.”
Each applicant must take a personality test, which will be compared to results from a peer evaluation that will show how others perceive the applicant. The exercise is meant to show that self-perception can be misleading.
Boral said that if students understand their personal strengths, they will better understand each other and themselves within their communities.
“The goal of the personality test is to start off students reflecting on how their characteristics play into their leadership role,” Boral said. “The most dynamic leaders we have today, their power does not necessarily come from authority.”
Organizers said that the program can accommodate up to 80 participants. There are no set criteria used to select the students, Boral said, though he added that applicants should have a desire to reflect and grow.
While Boral said the idea for the program came to him organically, he was also inspired by his time spent with peers in Washington, D.C. last summer as a participant in the Rockefeller Center’s First-Year Fellows program.
Planning began in the fall, and he has been soliciting advice from upperclassmen throughout the process.
Cynthia Tan ’17 said she appreciates that the opportunity is open only to freshmen because of its focus on peer discussion, and added that she was interested in the personality test aspect of the application.
The program’s three sessions amount to a total of less than five hours, but facilitators say that its purpose of cultivating reflection is designed to reach beyond the meetings.
“It has a more reflective tone that explores how we are constantly leading and being led as we go through our time at Dartmouth,” facilitator Sarah Waltcher ’16 said.
Program facilitators must all attend workshops and will lead participants in discussion.
“As a freshman, I didn’t have the opportunity to interact with as many upperclassmen as I wanted to,” Waltcher said. “One of the main reasons why I wanted to participate was because it has been a goal of mine to meet more ’17s.”
The Rockefeller Center also offers other leadership training initiatives, including the Management and Leadership Development Program and the Rockefeller Global Leadership Program. Several organizations at the College, including the Tucker Foundation and the Office of Pluralism and Leadership, offer programs for reflection and discussion as well. These include Intergroup Dialogue and the Diversity Peer Leadership Program.
Crossover with other programs, however, is beneficial, Boral said, as the program ultimately seeks to foster critical thinking about what leadership means to each student, and how that relates to their relationships and roles within the larger campus community.
“Because of the fast-paced nature of Dartmouth, it’s good to take a step back and look at the big picture,” Boral said.
The program is sponsored by the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and the Collis Center for Student Involvement.
