Servant Leadership
A core value that the University of Mary holds is servant leadership. This comes from St. Benedict. Servant leadership is about being a leader by helping to serve others, especially those who are vulnerable or less fortunate. Being a student at the University of Mary, I have been very fortunate to be able to have many opportunities to work on my servant leadership skills. Through the Emerging Leaders Academy, swimming, and my various classes, I have been shown what servant leadership looks like and have been able to practice it.
31:8 Project
In my sophomore year, ELA program, we all had to volunteer for an organization in our field. For my project, me and two other criminal justice students partnered with the 31:8 project and put on an event in Bismarck to raise awareness for human trafficking. I was able to work closely with Stacy Schaffer who exemplifies servant leadership well. With her, planned and executed the event at the Bismarck Public Library.
University of Mary Swimming
With the swim team, I have been able to participate in countless different volunteer projects. My swim coach, Allan McCallum, realizes that sports is about helping to build a better person in and out of the pool. Because of this, he helps us set up a lot of volunteer work. One of the things that I was able to participate in was a day in the pool with the Big Brother Big Sister program. They came to the pool one day and we played with them and then we all had pizza afterwards. I am also very fortunate to be able to work on my servant leadership skills my senior year as a captain of the swim team.
Soup Cafe
I was able to go to the Soup Cafe a few times in my junior year to volunteer. I was able to both help cook and serve food to the homeless population. The Soup Cafe teaches there volunteers how to connect people, especially people who may be different then ourselves. As taught in ELA, this is an important skills to possess.