Lassonde Ambassadors
Spring of 2014 to Spring of 2016
After the Innovation Roadmap course I got involved with the Lassonde Ambassador program as it fit in exactly with what I wanted to be doing. The Lassonde Ambassadors had two main goals both centered on building a community. The first being outreach to underrepresented high school students, encouraging college attendance and a STEM education. The second being outreach to the University of Utah campus, promoting Lassonde programming.
The outreach to high school students was extremely important work that I learned a lot from. Often the students that we were talking to were not encouraged to attend college at home or by their peers and we may have been the only bridge to the community from higher education. This was impactful for me as I belonged to a different community being raised differently and attending college, but was able to work with them and try to connect the two. I was also able to spend a lot of time getting out of my comfort zone by getting up in front of a classroom of students that I did not know and trying to relate to them. This challenge lead to a lot of self growth.
Outreach on campus is where I spent most of my time because I wanted to help build Lassonde into a larger community that the campus knew about; we are much closer now seeing huge growth since this time. I got plenty of opportunities to work on my public speaking with classroom visits and especially with tabling. Having no prior experience in this area I struggled at first, but found my love for it quickly. My ability to get up and table is one of my strong suits now.
After the first semester as an Ambassador I stepped up as one of two leaders to head the rest of the semester and the next year for the program. This took the experience to the next level. I learned a great deal about team leadership, especially leading a diverse team in which many of the students were older and more experienced than myself. Following a successful semester I was able to recruit, interview, and onboard my team for the next year. This brought their own challenges and learning opportunities for community building within a team.
The second year we started to see our hard work pay off with the growth and awareness of Lassonde, as well as students from the previous year attending the University now. I got the chance to lead my very own team and get practice with the challenges with that as well. During this time I got the chance to have many tough conversations with low performers and undedicated students, ultimately letting go one student. This was the first time that I had to fire someone from the team that I created, but it gave me a great learning opportunity that I took into future hiring.
This experience was one of the most transformative for me as a student, person, and a leader. I am extremely thankful for the lessons I learned and the mentorship that I received from Anne Bastien.
“Working with students was very gratifying. Going out to events and speaking with young people was the most gratifying portion of this year. I ran across tens of kids that may not have had the economic means to consider a college education, but my hope is that some of these students took my words to heart and started working to better their situations.” ”
Edible Campus Gardens
Summer of 2014 to Spring of 2015
Working with the Edible Campus Gardens was one of the first organizations that I got involved in on campus. After volunteering a few times over the year I was asked to apply for their volunteer coordinator position. This fit well with my love for food and passion for building a community that cared more about it. Healthy food options on campus can be hard to come by and that is why the Edible Campus Gardens was focused on growing and giving campus grown food to their community of volunteers and campus dining services.
Through the Bennion Center I was able to curate a community of volunteers that helped run the gardens from planning to harvest. I did this through onboarding, weekly meetings, and weekly emails. This was a great opportunity to connect students from all over campus around a shared passion of food. With the Bennion Center I was also able to get formal leadership training as well as work with other programs. I was also able to gain a valuable mentor Gina Russo who I still keep in touch with.
I learned many valuable skills in this position. Being shy this helped take me out of my comfort zone meeting and working with many different students in and out of the garden. I was able to get more experience in meetings and ways to run them. Emails were a large part of this position, I was able to learn how to meet deadlines, proofread, use mass email programs, as well as reply in a timely manner. Another important skill I learned was time management, in high school I thought I was busy with school and sports but college and everything else I was doing took it to another level. Time management is now something that I believe I am extremely good at. This was a great position of leadership early in my career that helped me immensely in all of my other areas, it was a great foundational opportunity.
This opportunity taught me a lot about a different side of the university that I did not see in the business and engineering dominate side of the school that I interacted with through Lassonde. Working with them gave me many challenges early on, I struggled working with a co-director. Through the great mentorship at the Bennion Center I was able to work on my issues and get practice in working with different work styles. I have since been much stronger in working with different groups on and off campus.
I am glad that I got the opportunity to practice and grow as a community builder and leader. This position had its ups and downs but I got to meet and work with many new people and the free food didn’t hurt! I look forward to continuing my work with the food community.
Chair of Networking and Skills
Spring of 2016 to Spring of 2017
After being apart of the creation of Lassonde’s outreach program for two years and three years of being with the program I was excited to take on the opportunity to be the one creating the programs rather than only promoting them. This was my chance to have a more direct impact on the Lassonde community, rather than simply growing it. Through this position I was able to directly lead three programs and help build a leadership community in Lassonde with my involvement in the other programs. Helping create the calendar and type of events that these three programs held I was able to lead the culture of Lassonde and what we had to offer. This was the first year in a new building and a large increase in awareness, involvement, and events on the calendar.
We were able to build a community through our networking events through the Meetups program. The Workshops program helped teach valuable hands on skills through one hour class style seminars taught by local businesses and leaders. We were able to connect students with professionals through our Hours with Experts program, each student got free one on one help with lawyers, business leaders, accountants, and more.
Outside of the specific task of programming I created the Board of Student Chairs in order to meet monthly with all of the top student leaders at Lassonde and help give them a voice and connect the community we were building. There was a lack of communication among top leadership in the past, and I wanted to make sure that this did not continue with the massive growth that we saw this year. These monthly meetings were a great way to bring everyone together to share ideas and voice concerns. For many students this was only the beginning in their leadership career and we helped teach each other along the way.
My leadership skills greatly improved this year as well. I had the opportunity to lead leaders this year. I got the chance to work with three unique students at different maturity levels with vastly different teams. The Hours with Experts program was in good hands with a return student director handling a different program, he was extremely reliable and the only thing that we needed to work on was his ability to take ownership of his program and execute. I was able to help my director of Workshops translate his Air Force leadership training to a more conventional style that two new to Lassonde students could work with. He started the year a little too strong and demanding but toned it down and created one of the strongest teams that Lassonde has had with a successful workshop every Wednesday. The Meetups program director gave me the most trouble early on with a lack of ownership and accountability. We developed a plan for him early on after a failure. I was able to take over for an event to show him my expectations and workflow. After this he was able to finish the semester strong. Coming back for the spring semester there was new challenge of him working full time. Together we were able to get the rest of the team up to speed and give them ownership over an individual event. This gave them all a chance to join the Lassonde leadership community and succeed. This year I was able to build a strong community of directors and associates and I am excited to see where this takes them.