Missouri Western strives to develop men and women with a capacity for leadership expressed in service to others.
The process of leadership is practiced and learned through a number of experiential activities and roles; employment, community service, student organizations, and coursework all contribute to knowledge and understanding of leadership.
The Center for Student Engagement sponsors a number of activities designed to help students reflect on experience and understand the process of leadership and how their contributions can make a positive impact on their community. The follow is a list of the most common programs we offer here at Missouri Western.
Barbara Sprong Leadership Challenge
The purpose of the Barbara Sprong Leadership Challenge is to provide
Missouri Western students with an opportunity to acquire and enhance leadership skills so that they may assume leadership roles while in university and after graduation. The program is named in honor of Barbara Sprong, a former member and president of the MWSU Board of Regents.
Greek Leadership Academy
The Greek Leadership Academy is a weekend long retreat held exclusively for the top leaders of
Missouri Western's Greek Community. Facilitated by the Greek Councils (IFC, PA, and NPHC) and the Center for Student Engagement, the retreat is designed to help these leaders continue to develop and improve their chapters, in addition to planning ways to strengthen the Greek community as a whole. Many different facilitators have participated in this retreat, along with many different students, making it a very valuable experience for Greek leaders.
Olympic Leadership**
The purpose of this leadership initiative is focus on developing student's critical and analytical thinking while strongly gearing them toward a more interdependent existence. This initiative will have five phases offered during the year (listed below are more details) to challenge and empower students to become stronger leaders and build upon their existing skill set.
Phase I: "I Am a Leader, I Am"-This phase will take a deeper look into the attributes (skill-set) it takes to be an effective leader while challenging participants the hard questions.
Phase II: "Balancing Act" -This phase will directly address students' needs in the areas of: Time Management, Study Habits, Maintaining a Healthy Mental-Emotional-Physical Well-Being and Stress Relief.
Phase III: "You, Me, I, We"- This phase would focus on students learning and gathering a strong sense of identity as a person and what role that play in becoming a stronger leader, assessing their interpersonal and intrapersonal attributes.
Phase IV: "Plan to be the Leader of Tomorrow"- This phase will focus on where students are now and assist them to self-analyze themselves and look to where they want to be as a leader.
Phase V: "I Care"- This phase focuses on the importance of civic responsibility or engagement; a service learning project would be introduced to students.
**If you complete all 5 phases you will be awarded a Leadership Award at the end of the year.
