Incubators for Student Leader Identity Emergence

Abstract

Too often student services have become a provider of discrete assistance in which one-way information transactions take place between the staff/student paraprofessionals providers and the students receiving the services. Students attend academic advising appointments, listen during tutorial or small groups study meetings, and read computer screens of information during career exploration sessions. Transactions seldom lead to transformations of engagement, identity, and deep learning for the students who provide or receive the service. Student leaders involved in student services, Students as Partners partnerships, student organizations, and athletics experience unanticipated personal and professional growth. Case studies from Australia, Belgium, Indonesia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States display global connections among common themes of co-curricular learning events from such rich environments. This chapter provides a conceptual model for an ecosystem of leader identity emergence that can be effective in a variety of student activity venues and recommendations to be more intentional in fostering growth.