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How have the workshops and discussions on leadership this week changed your understanding of what leadership means?
I realized that leadership can take on many different forms—I'm used to seeing the leader as a sort of "figure" for a movement, someone who is highly visible and proactively making top-down decisions. However, this week's workshop showed me that it is equally possible to be a leader no matter how much influence or status you have within a certain organization: Leadership is a product of one's own initiative. This definition of leadership grants those who abide by it more agency than a definition of leadership that requires pre-existing status, and I'm very excited to exercise this agency.
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How might you imagine applying one of the four ways of leading during your summer on campus?
During my summer on campus, I plan on really supporting my fellow scholars in any way I can. I think it's important to recognize that we can—and should—rely on each other for help. By developing my "side-by-side" leadership, I can become an effective sounding board for the ideas of my classmates and strengthen the connections between our cohort.
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What is everyone most excited about engaging in as part of their summer research project?I'm most excited about creating course material for EFL education. Currently, I teach an EFL class, and the materials we use are not the most intuitive for learners, nor are they necessarily conducive to contextual application of English in the world. I am incredibly excited about learning more about the best pedagogical practices for teaching adults a foreign language, and actually applying it in real life!