As part of an ongoing effort to help students develop superior leadership skills, Chancellor Phillip L. Clay has provided funds for nine proposals submitted to his Working Group on Student Leadership Development, a group of 12 faculty, staff and students.
"We hope to learn from our experience with these projects how to most effectively provide students with the leadership expertise they need to be successful in any of their future endeavors," Clay said in announcing the grants.
Among the proposals funded is an all-day Visionary Leaders Conference on Sunday, April 6 at the Sloan School of Management, which will focus on social responsibility in business, science and engineering. The conference is free to all MIT and Wellesley students. Additional information is available at http://leaders.mit.edu.
StartingBloc, a nonprofit organization founded by management sophomore Brett Boshco and a friend from the University of Chicago, is co-sponsoring the event. "We feel it's imperative that future business leaders understand the challenges of running a business that is responsible to all of its stakeholders," said Boshco.
Other projects that received at least partial funding were a week-long pre-orientation program for freshmen; a retreat for newly elected student government officers; a pilot retreat for government/house teams in three residence halls; and two retreats for executive leadership teams of four gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual student groups.
Others were an IAP retreat for the Mars Gravity project; a retreat for participants in the Innovation, Development, Enterprise, Action and Service (IDEAS) student program for public service projects; a workshop series devoted to reflection; and an assessment of leadership training needs that will lead to a series of workshops. For additional information, contact Francine Crystal at 258-8661 or fcrystal@mit.edu.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on April 2, 2003.
