College students as catalysts for social change: a case study

Core Values

Handy (1996) stresses the need for a common purpose and values to be shared by all the organizations members. The common purpose and values of SLP are widely shared with others through the MAD tour, camps and retreats for the campus leadership, in handouts and on their website. Roy says: “Our model is start big, show people the big vision of what we do and then let them do the smaller pieces as they will.”

Following are the definitions that the founders give to these four values and the feelings they hold around them that permeates the SLP culture.

Trust

To believe that people will carry out SLP work to the best of their ability; to believe that the tasks will be completed and the program will be effective; to believe that it can happen; to believe that one person can change lives; to believe that we are all leaders (SLP website, 2008).

Pete’s thoughts illustrate this point when he says:

I think that the Core Model you have to trust each other. Trust, it was last year’s word of the year. To be able to go into any big project like this that takes a lot of peoples lives…takes a big commitment. And to know that you have to be able to depend on them in order for this whole thing…to make it happen… you kinda, gotta go into it blindly at times and sometimes people don’t even know the people that they are working with when they get put together on a bus core…but you have to trust it is going to work out. So we talked a lot about trust and we always will, because it’s a big part of like our leadership theory and stuff, you know, like in our model you have to have it. It’s trusting our trip leaders and our chapter leaders, it’s like, in order for SLP to grow, we need to give a lot of responsibility away to students. You know, a ton of it, like we have to put students in charge of forty high school students and they are college students, and you have to do it. It’s trusting them and training them. Training them, and teaching them, and telling them what the ground rules [are], you know: things to think about, situations to think about, something comes up and trusting them to carry it out.

This trust or reliance on others is seen as a byproduct of the shared purpose for the organization and its mission. In asking which of the four values they felt were the most important Roy and Mackenzie also said trust. Mackenzie explains why:

I’m biased with trust because it was… extremely important to get us to where we are. I mean even the first year’s tour we had 39 people trust us, they gave us money before hand, and who knew where we were taking them, you know?

“To take action; to go against the norm; to respond to a need; to turn an idea into a reality; to follow a dream” (SLP website, 2008).

This commitment to initiative came out of a frustration with the educational system that the founders believe trains students to not believe in themselves. Mackenzie explains it,

So we train our students, our young people to ask permission to do anything, to use the restroom, to breathe, to do everything and then we wonder when they are in college why they don’t take any initiative! Good job education, great work.

Through SLP, students are challenged to take initiative and learn to change these earlier patterns of behavior. Pete talks about initiative:

Initiative is an easy one; I mean a lot of what we do is initiative-based; if students want to get involved it is extremely easy to be involved in SLP. It’s just taking a step and showing you want to be, and then it is like, there is so much you can do, you know. It is in our culture to give people more leadership opportunities.

If a student wishes to take the initiative they can attend a meeting for the first time and the next week can run the meeting. Pete talks about this very situation at an SLP chapter meeting he attended.

A meeting I went to at a local college they had two students, it was their second meeting they had gone to the first meeting, and they volunteered and they did an awesome job. I mean they did a way better job than I could have done I think, so it is cool to see what students will do when given an opportunity.

Mackenzie talked about the aspect of getting students to take initiative through challenging their thinking and asking questions. When asked how she does this she responded:

I do it more in my speeches I’m like what are you guaranteed in life? You’re not even guaranteed waking up when you go to sleep at night, even if you are married or have a significant other right next to you. You are going to sleep as an individual and what can you do as an individual? And I bring it back to that you are guaranteed nothing and I think entitlement, guaranteeing go hand in hand and so I mean just bringing up the question is important, not even for how they are going to answer it but how they will act. And I’ve seen students acting you know putting that initiative out there.

This whole area of questioning ties into Zohar’s (2008) SQ or Spiritual Intelligence in the area of tendency to ask fundamental “why” questions. Through questioning students and getting them to look at their lives, the intent is that some will take initiative to make personal changes.

Passion

“To discover personal power; to live life with excitement; to do what the heart desires; to listen from within” (SLP website, 2008). Pete comments about his own feelings regarding passion:

Passion is contagious I think, you know, like passion is catchy…people feel energy out of somebody and it is genuine, it is amazing where that will go. It just keeps on going, you know, it keeps spreading, it is like an epidemic. So I think that it’s valuable like if someone is doing something that they actually care about and they are excited about it they will find a lot more value in it and they will be a lot better at it, and they will keep on doing it.

The four founders are passionate about SLP; Roy even uses it as the adjective to describe himself. This passion is evident in encounters that others have with them and I believe has been one of the reasons they are successful. One of the development committee volunteers talks about what he has observed with the founders,

Naïveté…and passion and passion. I have never seen young people with such incredible passion for what they’re doing. It’s just absolute. That just absolutely renews my spirit every time I am with them because they want so hard for this to work and grow. And its not about them, it’s nothing about them, it’s about what’s the student experience is going to be like…so it’s very selfless.

This passion has infected other people with a desire to be involved with SLP and commit time, resources and energy. As Pete stated, “Passion is contagious.”

“To believe in the individual; to accept; to guide when needed; to allow for ownership, success, and mistakes; to let things happen” (SLP website, 2008).

A board member made the following comment:

SLP is creating an environment of self-disclosure, to pump the primer of leadership. There is a willingness of leaders to self disclose. My daughters were so excited and I did my examination of SLP. To create an environment where leaders model that, if the leader does that it is ok to do that. That is so rare in our crazy, fast-paced world.

His comments reflect the support that his daughters felt on the trip and other opportunities that have been provided for them. One of his daughters approached the founders about wanting to organize a silent auction. The founders supported her endeavor, providing the opportunity for her to develop skills in this area. She had not done anything like this in the past so another organization might not have believed in her abilities to organize this event. The silent auction raised over $7,000 not including company matching gifts and further donations as a result of the event. SLP in their definition of support allows for ownership and this was evidenced in this auction.

Nickers talks about support even in the midst of conflict:

There are definitely those disagreements but at the end of the day you either have to agree as a whole or you have to agree to disagree. Or at the same time whatever decision that was made ultimately you have to support it. Mackenzie…she always talks about is trying to be a united front…so whenever you’re being in meetings or things like that somebody presents something you have to stand right behind that person whatever they said and you have to go with it, and it might not be something you agree with.

Mackenzie talks about support and the way it creates ownership in the organization

There’s that one quote…‘People won’t remember what you said or what you did but they will remember how you made them feel.’ And that I believe, is something that SLP succeeds because of, on a tour, at some point you feel loved, accepted, and supported, something you don’t feel elsewhere.

Support is a big factor in SLP and the Core Model. Students are seldom left to do a task alone but can rely on the others in the core to assist them. SLP becomes a large support group for the students that are involved. At the weekly meetings that are held at college chapters there is always a time during the meeting for announcements. These announcements might be for students looking for rides home, apartment rentals or study partners so other aspects of their life are supported by SLP.

Another aspect of this support is affirmation. The students that are involved with SLP are affirmed at every step of the way. The group is encouraged to do things like giving standing ovations to a student. When a new student arrives at a meeting or a chapter arrives at a retreat they are greeted with applause and cheers. They are made to feel as if they matter. The meetings end with the giving of “Yeah Buddies” a symbolic gesture that is part of the SLP culture. A “Yeah buddy” is a hand gesture and positive affirmation of something the person has done or said. People are made to feel important and that they matter to the group.