Good leadership just a few skills away
Retreat combines campuses for joint training
by Roxanna Latifi, reporter

    Students from every campus met Oct. 11 to learn new leadership skills. The 12-hour Student Leadership Retreat was held at the American Airlines Conference and Training Center.

   Soar to Success gave 80 TCC students an opportunity to learn many skills and uncover hidden ones as well.

   Greg Clark, a leader and instructor for the retreat, led students in group activities that required abstract thinking and cooperation, such as Preparing for Take Off, Soaring to New Heights and Navigating Your Way to Leadership.

   Designed to initiate the students’ problem-solving tactics, one activity consisted of taking 10 air-filled balloons and having the team members write the positive aspects that make an organization a success.

   Then Clark placed the balloons in a trash bag and instructed students to play a volleyball-like game with the bag, signifying that the team was able to keep their organization a success and up in the air.

   Next, Clark asked students to list the negative aspects that can bring down and destroy an organization.

   Clark listed the items on a considerably smaller-sized water balloon in the bag and then instructed students to play the game once again.

   Because of the imbalance, students could not keep the bag in the air. Clark explained that is exactly how negativity can destroy a group no matter what positive is there.

   To get the student leaders to use their skills, Clark also used low-element R.O.P.E.S. courses, obstacle courses for the body and mind.

   These activities took place no more than 5 to 10 inches off the ground and consisted of teamwork efforts and problem-solving situations to reach proposed goals.

   Another activity required about 10 students to stand upon a 4-foot by 4-foot wooden block.

   The scenario was that the students’ airplane had crashed on the top of a mountain. Help was on the way, but before they could be rescued, the students had to calculate how to get all of the students from one block to a second, then to a third. They were given 20 minutes to do so.

   The exercise required teamwork and leadership strategies.

   Cheryl Hamilton, NE associate professor of speech, discussed the top ten symptoms of a bad listener.

   Then students took a pop test to learn how well they listened. After most students discovered they were part of the high percentage of non-listeners, Hamilton gave them tips on overcoming poor listening skills and achieving good listening skills.

   Lou Davenport from NE student activities said students took more with them from the retreat than they originally thought.

   “Every student I have spoken with about the retreat has had nothing but positive things to say. The students expected to have fun but took so much more than that from this retreat,” she said.

   In evaluating the retreat’s impact, many students said the retreat helped them learn new characteristics about themselves and taught them how to use those qualities.

   Others found they needed to learn new things to expand their leadership abilities.

   Lizeth Escorcia, president of the South Campus Latino Student Union, said the retreat helped unite student organizations.

   “After Oct. 11, the sense of distance disappeared, uniting TAMACS, OLAS and LSU to no longer work as independent organizations, but as one strong Hispanic organization from Tarrant County College,” she said.

   To conclude the day of leadership skills development, students attended a “formal” dinner. Male students were given plastic top hats, plastic bow ties and paper vests. Female students were given plastic jewelry to “dress” for the formal dinner.

   An instructor from American Airlines gave tips on etiquette in the corporate world. Place mats on the table showed diagrams of proper table settings, and as dinner progressed, students learned the do’s and don’ts of etiquette.