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Integrating College and Middle School Leadership Development Programs: An Unexpected Success Story
KEYWORDS: Leadership, Mentoring, Community-Engagement
During this session, I will share how integrating college-level and middle school leadership development programs reaped unexpected success. I established a youth leadership development program for seventeen 8th graders with college students, faculty and staff in mentoring and supporting roles. Within 4 months, the program was featured on local TV several times, in a top local business magazine, and spurred a grassroots effort on my university’s campus that expanded the program to three colleges, four disciplinary tracks, and approximately 100 students. Without solicitation, the program is continuing to expand with people from the community and university inquiring to be involved.