2015 Leadership Summit Recap

This past weekend March 14-15, 2015 the Office of Student Leadership and Activities hosted its 3rd annual Leadership Summit. The Leadership Summit is designed for students who are interested in learning more about leadership in an weekend experience that can hopefully frame future involvement at Hofstra. This year 16 students attended and traveled from Hofstra to Quinipet Retreat Center in Shelter Island Heights and were led by Karl Koeppel, Associate Director in OSLA,
JArryn Mercer, Assistant Director in OSLA, Tony Porcelli and Yvonne Pitts, both Resident Directors in the Office of Residential Programs.

After traveling to Quinipet and getting settled Karl led the group in several getting to know you games and opened the discussion of why they were at the Leadership Summit.
Each participant was paired with someone that the did not know and had to deliver to the whole group a commercial about why they had signed up and what they were hoping to get out
of the experience.

After these were completed the group went to lunch in the dining hall by the water and proceeded to join Quinipet staff for an afternoon of team builders and activities working on building communication skills, relaying on each other as a group and having fun at the same time. Upon concluding with the Quinipet staff, Karl led the group in a discussion of what it means to be a leader and then asked them to identify from a list of famous people if they were leaders. It was able to open a discussion on everyone from Richard Nixon to Miley Cyrus and what leadership qualities they exhibit. After dinner, Yvonne led the group in a True Colors personality type indicator that allowed the group to learn more about their strengths and weaknesses and framed how to approach future leadership.The group then reviewed a popular Ted Talk about involvement and how to inspire leadership. The night was concluded with a reflection on balance and how important that is to be a leader led by Tony along with s'mores and socializing in front of the fireplace.

The second day started out with breakfast as a group and then more team builders with Quinipet staff focusing on more physical activities and how to join as a group to complete the
tasks. Upon completing these, the group got back together and Karl led the group in working on personal leadership plans in small groups for planning upon returning to Hofstra. The summit concluded with Tony leading a debrief on looking at how what they learned over the weekend would be beneficial in the future and how participants could support each other.

The 2015 Leadership Summit was a great experience overall and we are already looking forward to 2016! For more information please contact OSLA at osla@hofstra.edu.