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Let the Students Lead

By Elissa K. Harvill

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Click Photo to Enlarge Women at the top: Sjoberg and Taylor ignited interest in student-initiated leadership programs at the national 2006 Association of Christians in Student Development Conference, hosted by Indiana Wesleyan University in Marian, Ind.

During the first week of June, Dr. Connie Sjoberg, director of ORU's Leadership Academy, traveled to Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Ind., to present an unusual idea: student-initiated leadership.

The forum for this novel idea was the 2006 Conference for the Association of Christians in Student Development.

Specifically, Dr. Sjoberg spoke of Ignite, the four-year-old student-initiated leadership event-turned-mentoring program founded by ORU students who had interned with Dr. Tim Elmore. (Dr. Elmore, an ORU alumnus, is founder and president of Growing Leaders. He began working under leadership guru Dr. John Maxwell in 1983.) At this point in time, by all accounts, there is not another program quite like Ignite at any other university. Read the latest on Ignite.

Among the 70-plus workshops offered to the conference's more than 800 attendees was the one led by Sjoberg and ORU's director of Student Counseling Services, Michelle Taylor. Its title: "Let Them Lead."

"We spoke about how to be open to [student-initiated leadership] as administrators," Sjoberg said, "how to be aware of both the risks and the benefits and appreciate how great it is for students to have that ownership."

Dr. Maxwell was a special speaker at the conference. Incidentally, Ignite co-founder Sarah Grace Turner is employed in the international department of Maxwell's global leadership services company, Equip.

"It was great to get Ignite out there before our contemporaries" from a number of colleges and universities, Sjoberg said, including members of the Coalition of Christian Colleges and Universities. A timely debut, considering that Ignite just this last year opened its doors and invited students from other universities and colleges to attend the event. Next year, prospective students will be invited too.

Already, Sjoberg has connected with the ACSD regional coordinator, who operates out of Texas Christian University. She wants to use Ignite to bring association members from Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana together for professional development purposes. "[The regional coordinator] is going to have meetings going on for the professionals during [the Ignite conference]," Sjoberg said, "and of course, we are encouraging them to bring their students with them!"

To check for updates on Ignite 2007 workshops, events, and conference speakers, visit http://ignite.oru.edu/.