On Feb. 24, Director of Student Involvement & Leadership Jessica Grady sent an email to the class of 2023 informing of an upcoming “living and learning space” for rising sophomores interested in “grow[ing] their leadership identity and personal understanding of leadership.”
The 14-person community, which will be located on the third floor of Bates, is a part of the College’s five-year strategic planning to expand opportunities for the development of student leadership.
“The opportunities that are present for developing student leadership are uncoordinated and driven by different frameworks and methodologies,” the Wellesley in the world working group wrote in their Current State Analysis. “The College lacks an institutionally shared, broad and inclusive definition of leadership.”
Titled the Leadership Living Learning Community, the community emphasizes on learning about the self, others and the idea of purpose.
According to the email, students involved in the community will be expected to participate in an off-campus fall retreat held before or within the first month of classes, a “collaborative leadership development projective in [the] spring semester” focused on purpose, a weekly one-hour shared activity or meeting with other members and other community-designed activities.
Afterwards, they will be “empowered to share their experience with the wider Wellesley community,” Grady wrote.
The ideal community member was described as a student who is interested in living in a community with others, starting conversations about leadership and open to learning about themselves and others.
“Our goal is that students engage in a community that will allow for a more developed sense of personal leadership identity, more experience working with and understanding others, and more clarity around personal values and how to live them in their daily life,” Grady wrote in the email.
