A Great Opportunity

Today I would like to write to you about a great leadership opportunity available at UWSP. The Student Government Association (SGA) works on many issues that concern students to include tuition, campus environmental issues, and education issues (i.e. GDRs).

The easiest way to become involved is to become a Student Senator. Senators represent the students on all issues that come before the Student Government.

Being a senator requires about 5-6 hours a week. You would be asked to attend three meetings a week. The first meeting is the weekly senate meeting. The entire senate meets every Thursday at 6pm in the Legacy Room (3rd floor of the DUC), this meeting will last about 2-3 hours. This is where Student Government makes most of its decisions. During these meetings SGA will review legislation and discuss proposals.

The other two meetings per week are committee meetings; these will last about an hour each. The first committee senators are asked to attend are SGA committee meetings. During these meetings SGA committees will discuss what the Executive Directors are doing and discuss legislation before it goes to the entire Senate.

The second type of committees is faculty committees. These committees often have one or two students sitting on them with a mix of Faculty and Academic Staff. There are many issues that faculty committees work on, basically if you are interested in any sort of university issue there is a faculty committee for you.

The best part about being a Student Senator is you will meet a lot of great people all over campus. You will be able to make a lot of great friends and make some valuable contacts that will help you during and after your college career.

I really hope you consider becoming a Student Senator. If you are interested please e-mail me at alets410@uwsp.edu.

Confidence

It is my opinion that the most important thing a leader can be is confident.
I can tell you now that I haven’t always been a leader, nor have I always been confident. You wouldn’t be able to tell now, but I used to be a very shy person. As a kid I often enjoyed playing alone or with one other person rather than in large groups. I didn’t play many sports in high school (mostly due to my lack of ability, which holds true to this day); instead I worked at one of the grocery stores in my home town of Eau Claire. It was that job where my journey to becoming a leader began. Well sort of…
My journey really began when I was a boy scout where I had the opportunity to lead people; I just wasn’t very good at it then. I would often do projects myself rather than delegate the tasks. That is why I say my journey didn’t begin until high school.
I used to work at Copps. I started off as a bagger and worked my way up to a front end supervisor position. I was in charge of making sure all of the cashiers and baggers got their breaks on time and to make sure the small odds and ends jobs got done. This is where I began to come out of my shell and enjoy working with other people.
It wasn’t until my second semester that I was more confident and was able to really begin being a leader. I attribute a large part of that to a class, Communication 101. I think a lot of students wouldn’t agree with me that this is one of the best courses offered, but let me explain my reasons. A leader needs to be able to speak in front of their subordinates. I have always had something to say, whether it is in class or in an informal setting, but I never felt comfortable saying it. Comm 101 forced me to get in front of a group of my peers and say something.
The first time I had to give a speech I was a nervous wreck. I was pacing all over the place and stumbling over my words. By my final speech I was confident and felt like I could argue the best orators out there. I probably wouldn’t win, but I would have a great time doing it. Before that class I couldn’t imagine myself talking to a group of people I had never met. Today I give tours to prospective students and their families and absolutely love it.
I highly encourage you to take that class as soon as you can. Not to get it out of the way, but because you will learn a lot about yourself and you will leave it feeling like you can speak in front of just about anyone. Like I stated before, confidence is the name of the game. If you can confidently speak people will listen to you and you will be a more effective leader.

Your First Year

Good morning, afternoon or evening. I’m not really sure when you are reading this, but for me writing this it is 12:05am. I guess that makes it tomorrow.

I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Andrew Letson, but everyone calls me Andy. I’m 23 years old, a senior at UWSP (graduating in December!) and am working on a Bachelor of Arts with majors in Political Science and Public Administration/Policy Analysis. When I am done here I want to attend graduate school and work on a Masters of Public Administration. Ultimately I want to be a City Manager or a County Executive. Right now I’m just a student, much like you.

While it has only been a short five years since I was in your shoes as a recent high school graduate sometimes it feels like ancient history. But, trust me; I know exactly how you are feeling right now. You are probably both excited and nervous to be starting college, especially if you are like me and are going to a school without many of your high school classmates. Even if you are coming to UWSP with many of the same people you graduated with the next four, five or six years are going to be some of the best of your life.

Over the next couple of months I will be writing about leadership. You’ll be able to read about my experiences and hopefully be able to learn from them.

Today I want to write about the challenges of starting college. I was fortunate when I came to college for a couple of reasons. The first was as a kid I was involved in boy scouts which allowed me to be away from home for weekends now and again. Also between my junior and senior years of high school I joined the Wisconsin Army National Guard and I had to go off to basic training for three months before I started college. Both of these experiences made it much easier for me to be away from home. I was very fortunate to have that independence. I know this isn’t always the case with college freshmen. I was also fortunate because I could continue my high school job here in Stevens Point. This helped me maintain some sort of stability and structure my first semester in school.

The downside was I started school in January. When I moved into the Residence Halls most people had already established their groups of friends and it was difficult for me to fit in. During this semester I focused more on school and work than on meeting people and getting involved. Looking back I think this was a big mistake. I’m not saying it’s not important to focus on school or work, but you need to make time to get involved and meet some new people.

After my first semester probably the best thing that could have happened to me did, I was deployed to Iraq for a year. Now you may be saying to yourself, “Self, why was this the best thing to happen to Andy?” Let me tell you, a year in Iraq gives you a lot of time to think (especially with the job that I had). I realized that I was hurting myself by not getting involved and meeting new people. When I came back in the fall of 2006 I did a complete 180. I joined three student organizations and tried to meet as many people as I possibly could. Although I didn’t live in the Residence Halls anymore, I enjoyed being on campus more and frankly my grades were better because of it.

I did notice something about other freshmen in my classes. There were some people who I would talk to in class and occasionally hang out with outside of class who went home every single weekend. Some of them went home for work, others for a significant other, but some because they just wanted to see their friends from high school. While it is a good thing to maintain those friendships you need to ask yourself, do you want to be someone who has graduated high school and moved on with life, or do you want to be that person who never really graduated? I chose the latter path and frankly am much happier because of it.