When should I train my student leaders? That’s a question I get a lot. And the answer is that it varies from school to school, what stage of leadership your student leaders are at, and what you are trying to accomplish. Since I can’t cover every conceivable situation in this email, I’ll give you some general guidelines about timing your training for your student leaders.
In short, the answer to this question is based on the academic school year – basically September through May.
First Semester Leadership Training
The first cycle for training student leaders is during the month of August. A lot of schools like to get a jump on training their leaders by holding training sessions and retreats either right before or just at the start of the year. This works especially well if your student leaders are involved in New Student Orientation in some way or if getting your student government, clubs, and organizations started immediately is important on your campus. How smoothly an organization runs is based on officer preparation and the training they have received. Making sure that your leaders know how to better run organizations is important from the start.
The second best time is to get everybody up to speed early on during the fall semester. Getting students involved before the school year even starts can be difficult, so I find myself very busy during September and October. Again, these are critical months for getting all of your campus clubs and organizations cranking at full efficiency from the start. If your clubs are not properly operating from the beginning of the year, many things can go wrong by the time you reach November and December. The bottom line is August, September and October are prime student leadership training months.
Second Semester Leadership Training
With that being said, I find that January and February are also great training months. Why? A lot of schools have a beginning of the second semester leadership program or conference – or they kick off a leadership series. They find that it’s an especially good time to train freshman and first year leaders. During the first semester those new leaders have had a chance to get their feet wet – both at school in general and in their student leadership roles. Now they’re ready to dig in deeper and make it all work for both them and their organizations. Because most of the country is deep into winter during January and February, a lot of retreats and ski weekends are held. Students will often ski all day and have leadership training at night. I have to admit these are great fun for me too!
The Early Bird Gets The Worm
Finally there’s the student leadership training that happens later in the spring – the March and April time frame. While some schools train their student leaders in August before the semester starts, spring training is for the really early birds. It occurs immediately following the spring student officer elections. Even though these newly elected officers won’t take office until the fall semester, getting them off to a quick start can reap rewards. During this time I’ve helped many elected leaders plan recruitment drives, put next year’s calendar together and set their club or organization’s vision for the coming year. This training can also occur during the summer months.
Summer months work well for community and technical colleges because the students typically live in the area and can participate in a full- or multiple-day retreat, whereas they might not be able to during the school year due to other obligations. You can also schedule a time when there are no classes, such as between terms or around the 4th of July holiday.
All-in-all there really is no bad time to train your student leaders, but it is important that they do get trained – and the sooner the better. If you can get them trained before they make a bunch of mistakes, they are less likely to get discouraged and your campus and students will benefit because they’ll learn to run better organizations.
I would love to help you train your campus leaders! I have presentations for student government members and leaders, officers and members of clubs and organizations, and more. You can pick topics across categories or I can put together an agenda based on your needs pulling together relevant material to customize your training.
Is this the kind of content and training you would like for your students? I would love to bring it to your campus! Click on the program link here to check it out and then email me at DaveKelly@GonzoSpeaks.com or call me at 770-552-6592 to discuss a date for me to come to your school. Booking me will not break the bank – check out my Affordable Pricing Model for a quote! I look forward to serving your students!