NEW Leadership & Wellness Center

             The new Leadership and Wellness Center was created to give students a variety of opportunities to develop leadership skills other than at leadership weekend as well as to help students feel better and give them chances to get out and focus on being healthy, says Maureen Murphy, the assistant director of Student Activities. Kelly Adams, assistant vice president for Advertisement/Marketing & Communications for Institutional Advancement, is very excited to have this kind of center available to the students. He believes that students will be able to walk away with a variety of experiences.
              "The role that the center could play is as a very visible and effective bridge between academic and social dimensions of student education and experience here," said Adams. "The programming will provide meaningful opportunities to students." The events the center has in place already range from the Biggest Loser Challenge, a Ski trip, and different kinds of workshops.
                The center is holding a series of leadership workshops. They will be open to students, faculty, and staff; also, private sessions can be scheduled by individual UC organizations for a more one-on-one approach. The workshops will focus mainly on three topics this semester which are body language, officer transition, and basic organization issues such as delegation and pumping up other members to get more involved.
                The body language workshop is designed to make people aware of the different types of body language, how to effectively use body language in situations, that some body language can be taken as negative even though it isn't meant that way, and how to be aware of your own language.
                "Some people use negative body language and they don't even know they are doing it," said Maureen Murphy. "My workshop is designed to educate people how to be aware of this."
                Office transitions are something that happens in every organization at least once a year, sometimes once a semester. It is very important that organizations are aware of how to effectively transition and know that they need sufficient time to do so, said Murphy. Paul Lehmann, director of Student Activities, will be helping put on this workshop. Lehmann describes the workshop as "a course on advancing leaders on strategies and how to transition form one group leader to another." He said organizations sometimes wait too long to start the transition process.
               "Most wait until March or April to pick new officers, leaving no time to work with the present position holder or plan for the next year," said Lehmann. "They end up needing to take at least a month out of the fall semester to teach/transition the new position leader. Sometimes the previous holders are seniors and by the time new ones are picked, seniors may have 'checked out' or they graduate before the transition is done."
               Sometimes organizations have problems with their leaders delegating jobs and tasks to other members for a variety of reasons. There are times that some members may feel that not everyone is as dedicated as the other and this can be a reason why they have problems delegating. This is where "pumping up" other members comes in. The workshop that covers basic organization issues will offer ways for leaders and members to get excited about their organization and what their focus is and what needs to get done. It will also give tips on delegating tasks to other members.
                The dates and times of these workshops are not yet determined. If you are interested in having Maureen Murphy hold a workshop for your organization, you can contact her by e-mail at mrmurphy@utica.edu, by phone at (315) 792-3037, or stop by her office in 105 Strebel Student Center.

                                                SUBMITTED BY: Sarah Lucia

More info: http://www.utica.edu/student/activities/leadershipwellness.cfm