As part of their academic-year leadership training, members of Iowa State's Emerging Leaders Academy (ELA) put theory to work, first identifying issues or challenges on campus and then throwing the time, brain power and collaboration tools of an eight-person team at some solutions.
The 32 members of the 2023-24 ELA class gathered April 19 to share outcomes of their four capstone projects. They also reflected on what they learned about teamwork, navigating a large university to accomplish goals and how leadership works best among a whole team of leaders.
While providing an opportunity to practice leadership, ELA team capstone projects also aim to support the university's strategic plan and Principles of Community. Additionally, a project should:
- Be sustainable without creating lots of work for someone else
- Focus narrowly enough on an issue that it be completed in six months
- Involve campus stakeholders or clients in its planning
Here's a short summary of the teams' work and where you might experience the outcomes:
Team 1
The issue: Each semester, more than 100 undergraduates with a low distraction accommodation request struggle in the practical/laboratory exams for 100- and 200-level chemistry courses. Additionally, what funding sources exist to address this specific need? (The challenge exists in numerous departments but is largest in chemistry.)
Short-term response: Plexiglas shields, ear plugs and headphones to equip 12 chemistry labs would cost $7,000 and help students perform at their best during hands-on lab exams. The provost's office is interested in sponsoring this effort. Strategic plan annual funds might be another option.
Long-term response: Following lab tours, a student survey and a best practices review, the team recommended a tool kit for use in future labs (new or remodeled).
Team 2
The issue: The Pappajohn Center for Entrepreneurship's programs and services are underutilized by ISU faculty and staff who could benefit from them.
Response: Based on focus groups and individual interviews (and a theme analysis of the coded transcripts) the team identified reasons faculty and staff don't know of or don't use the Pappajohn Center and recommended communication and education strategies for more effective outreach to, and engagement with, faculty and staff. The team gave its presentation to center director Judi Eyles in mid-April.
Team 3
The issue: How to expand the capacity of the student food pantry, SHOP, to serve more students, especially students' families. This involves effectively communicating with would-be clients, growing SHOP's volunteer corps and investigating options for upcycling food from campus catered events at SHOP.
Response: The team is working on several initiatives: new language on donating leftover food in the training document for 800 student organizations, a grant proposal for a campus food upcycling app, emails to Schilletter University Village residents confirming families may use SHOP, training with recreation services student employees in Beyer Hall so family members may access SHOP, a paid marketing internship to assist with promoting SHOP, incentives in the employee well-being program, Adventure2, for employee volunteers at SHOP.
Team 4
The issue: Employees don't know how to locate valuable university resources. From collective experiences, new employee onboarding is not comprehensive or consistently enforced.
Response: The team began assembling a list of essential onboarding activities with the intent of developing a central website of common resources, a "welcome packet." With so many units around campus "that have their fingers in this," the list of possibilities became long and a bit overwhelming. Another concern was long-term management and maintenance of such a site.
The team eventually learned of a parallel effort by university human resources to revamp the employee onboarding process in Workday, and concluded its best option would be to promote the Workday resource checklist.
About ELA
The provost's office launched ELA in 2009 to develop faculty and professional and scientific staff who either serve in leadership roles at Iowa State or aspire to them. In fall 2017, new leaders for the program introduced team capstone projects, replacing a mentor component with an ISU leader for each class member.
Currently, ELA's administrative director is Katharine Hensley, office of the senior vice president and provost, and the faculty co-leads are assistant provost for faculty success Tera Jordan and music and theatre department chair Brad Dell.
