Brown and White Vol. 128 no. 5

              The Brown and White
Vol. 128 No. 5
Friday, February 13, 2015
‘All the Lehigh News First’
After a successful first year as one of 75 universities offering the program, LeaderShape is prepar­ing to begin its second year at Lehigh.
The nationally recognized six-day program is designed to pro­mote identity development and inclusive leadership.
Lehigh has been sending a few students to the national sessions held by LeaderShape every year since 2003, but it wasn’t until last year that the program was brought to Lehigh.
“Based on the student experi­ences and feedback and the nature of the campus climate, we felt that it made a lot of sense to bring LeaderShape to Lehigh, since it has a strong focus on diversity and inclusion,” said Christine Gravelle, the assistant Dean of Students and director of Leadership Develop and Civic Engagement.
Last May following final exams, Lehigh’s first LeaderShape program was held at Camp Canadensis in the Poconos. Fifty-two students participated in lead­ership-based dialogues and activ­ities in order to create their own blueprint for the future.
Students were encouraged to think outside of the box and make a combination of short- and long-term goals that they could strive toward on their return to Lehigh and throughout the rest of their lives.
With these goals in mind, they could create an even greater vision of what they want to achieve in their lifetime.
“Ultimately, this experience challenges participants to create a blueprint plan grounded in their deepest values,” Gravelle said. “Students have the opportunity to learn about who they are, what they want to do, and who they want to be.”
The six-day program also incor­porates a portion called “Day 7,” which includes all of the activi­ties that occur once the students return to Lehigh. The students have the opportunity to choose a
By EMILY MAY
B&W Staff
LeaderShape prepares for second year at Lehigh
Lehigh students participate in service trips during Spring Break 2014, including a Habitat for Humanity project and a trip to Kenya for the International Social Entrepreneurship course. Every year, Lehigh offers a variety of alternative spring break trip opportunities for students.
See BREAKS Page 3
See LEADERSHAPE Page 4
For many Lehigh students, the words “spring break” might bring images of white sandy beaches and parties, but for some groups on campus, this year’s spring break will be more service-ori­ented.
Two trips in particular: The Civil Rights Experience and the International Social Entrepreneurship class trip, will provide students with an oppor­tunity to expand their learning horizons outside of the classroom and create hands-on experiences.
The Civil Rights Experience, organized by the Africana studies program, will immerse students in historic sites critical to the Civil Rights movement in Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee. The trip is funded and supported by the MLK Committee, the Office of the Provost and the Office of Academic Diversity.
The trip will consist of a four-day driving excursion, highlight­ing sites important to the Civil Rights movement, such as the National Civil Rights Museum.
“I looked at our programming for this semester,” said Dr. James Peterson, the director of Lehigh’s Africana Studies Program. “We have Michelle Alexander for our MLK piece, we’re doing a huge Malcolm X conference next week, and I felt like we should do some kind of capstone to that. We have these courses, we have these great programs, how do we cap that off?”
Peterson said he thought orga­nizing an alternative spring break trip would be able to do just that. He chose Memphis as the location for this trip because it was a main site of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s work toward the end of his life. It was also the location of his assas­sination.
Peterson explained that King was in Memphis at the time of his assassination working with sanitation workers who were on strike.
“So a lot of times people think of (MLK) as this sort of hero for racial equity and racial jus­tice, which is true, but at the point at which he was assassi­nated, he was really beginning to focus on the economics and the class issues that he saw dividing America long-term and that’s the work that he was engaged in,” Peterson said. “It’s not just the site where he died, it’s the site where we can get a deeper under­standing of the broad range of the social justice issues that he was actually committed to.”
Katerina Traut, ’17, a politi­cal science and Africana studies major who plans on attending the trip, heard about the trip to Memphis from Peterson during the fall semester. She is currently taking Professor Ted Morgan’s
By KELLY MCCOY
Design Editor
Coursework, service offer alternative spring break opportunities for students
Courtesy of the Community Service Office
Courtesy of Savannah Boylan
Courtesy of Savannah Boylan
Courtesy of the Community Service Office