Presidential Leadership Academy
Since the end of freshman year, my involvement in the Presidential Leadership Academy (PLA) has been one of the most key components of my college education. PLA selects thirty freshmen each year to participate in a three-year certificate program entailing classes with both the dean of the Schreyer Honors College, the president of Penn State, and off-campus excursions designed to challenge your worldview. Over my sophomore year spring break, we traced the path of the Civil Rights movement through the American South and engaged with participants who gave first-hand accounts. Through this experience and other PLA opportunities, I have refined my critical thinking skills, which my weekly blog reflects.
Policy Paper As part of our course sophomore year, I worked with a team of four others to research, write, and present a policy paper to my peers, prominent university members, and the president. We were challenged to address and issue of fairness; my team members and I decided to address the issue of fairness in language education, and designed an immersion program for Pennsylvania elementary schools. Field Trips One of the most engaging aspects of PLA are the biannual field trips that are part of the academy experience. These trips give amazing insight into a diverse range of fields and the interdisciplinary solutions that are required across the nation in order to solve some of today's most pressing challenges. They also provide networking opportunities with current PLA members as well as alumni, and have led to some of the most stimulating discussions I have had in college. My sophomore year we travelled to Pittsburgh in the fall and followed the path of the Civil Rights movement through the American South in the spring. The trip to Pittsburgh provided me with an excellent foray into engaging with other PLA members and acquainting myself with the Academy's network, while also exploring interesting topics such as city development, restaurant management and growth, community revitalization, and press integrity. The spring ten-day-long trek through the South was easily in the top three list of my most moving and powerful experiences of my college experience, as we visited numerous movements pertaining to the Civil Rights struggle, spoke with a witness to Bloody Sunday on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, and spoke with key figures in the Samsonian Institution about the design and challenges facing the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. My junior year, we travelled to Seattle, Washington over spring break. This field study offered me insight into the world of start-up culture, city-planning challenges facing the Pacific Northwest, technological giants such as Microsoft, Avanade, Blue Origin, and Amazon, and the culture of the American Indians living in the region. Finally, during my senior year, we travelled to Chicago and to Pittsburgh. In Chicago, I explored famous architecture, the feud between the jazz and the blues, challenges to developing sustainable water systems through civil engineering, the ethics of artificial intelligence, and free speech rights on the campus of the University of Chicago with its President, Robert Zimmer. On a day trip to Pittsburgh, we examined some of the sustainable initiatives in the city, including the Phipps Conservatory, Pittsburgh Park, and Sustainable Pittsburgh. Growth in the Academy Participation in the academy over the past few years has helped me develop a sense of self-assurance in my own leadership styles. Through personal reflections, insightful discussion with a wide-range of successful individuals, and leadership exercises, I have come to fully understand the many shapes of leadership, and feel confident in my own process. A leader is not always the loudest or boldest person in the room -- true leaders have the ability to listen as well as to speak, and to demonstrate the humility to adapt when their plans must change or listen to expertise of others when their own knowledge of a particular subject is lacking. Additionally, my experience in the academy granted me valuable exposure to a variety of individuals with different personal and academic backgrounds, and working with my fellow PLA-ers to solve challenges constantly and refreshingly reminded me of the importance of interdisciplinary work when conquering the most complex problems of the day. Hearing from experts in fields outside of my own academic interests across my classes and during field trips impressed upon me the need for collaboration between talented individuals from all backgrounds and walks of life in order to solve challenges such as how to build a more sustainable world or improve city infrastructure. I became confident in the knowledge that my ability to listen and coordinate with many different types of people to neatly assemble a final project is an effective style of leadership. Finally, classes with President Barron gave me a particular appreciation for all of the factors at play in the decisions surrounding American universities, and a sense of the integrity, patience, and vision that one must exercise when leading an organization as large and diverse as Penn State. In the future, I would recommend that PLA classes continue to create policy papers centered around the most pressing themes of today's world, just as the sophomore class this year tackled sustainability. |