ULEAD is dedicated to crafting student leaders.
It’s a program hosted by the Office of Orientation & Leadership Development for any student at the U, regardless of major, who wants to learn about leadership in ways that cannot be taught in a formal classroom setting. ULEAD stands for Utah Leaders Engage Achieve Develop and requires students to attend 12 hours of workshops to get a designation on their diploma.
Matt Markham, a graduate student who oversees ULEAD, thinks all students can benefit.
“It is so important to be a part of ULEAD because it provides an opportunity to intentionally improve the student’s leadership skills,” he said. “This program is structured to provide leadership tools for whatever their future holds.”
The program, which includes workshops on ethics and diversity, is meant to be completed with 15 to 20 hours over a school year. The students must also attend a leadership conference, such as the Women’s Leadership Summit or the Conference on Social Awareness.
“We try to represent a variety of lessons,” Markham said. “As a group, we talk about the theoretical and academic leadership, in addition to the really hard skills associated with leadership, such as public speaking and time management. We really value diversity and social justice and want to instill them into the students.”
Although this is the first year of ULEAD, leadership workshops have been implemented at the U over the last few years.
“We took programs that the U was already doing and put them under a singular program for résumés and references, which really fit a need for students on campus,” Markham said. “Career preparedness is a concern, and employers want leadership roles on résumés.”
Some of the ULEAD workshops can count towards the U’s leadership studies minor, such as Leadership in Community and Foundations in Leadership. Both classes are discussion-based and are smaller than the average U class. Markham wants to see the program expand and be “integrated” more.
“I’m so excited about where leadership at the U could go,” he said. “I would love to see ULEAD become more recognized and implemented into student organizations across campus, as well as to see it move forward.”
Leah Hogsten, an undeclared freshman, said leadership programs such as this are “important” on campus.
“Leadership makes people better people,” she said.
[email protected]
@JulianneSkrivan