Twenty rising high school seniors will be developing leadership skills and devising community service projects at Wartburg College’s High School Leadership Institute, July 22-28.
The eighth annual HSLI program will involve participants from five states — Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Colorado and Arizona — mentored by eight Wartburg students as well as college faculty and staff. Participants will hone team-building and leadership skills on campus and during a trip to Chicago to work with children at Holy Family Lutheran School.
The HSLI students also will design blueprints for community service projects to implement when they return to their hometowns. Some of the proposals include:
· Raising money for iPads to be used in math programs.
- Creating ongoing entertainment for residents at the Marshalltown veteran’s home.
- Fundraising for the Ronald McDonald House in Des Moines.
- Improving Cedar Rapids facilities damaged in the 2008 flood.
- Counteracting bullying in middle schools and high schools.
- Developing recycling projects.
- Establishing mentoring programs.
- Helping the homeless.
- Assisting children at a local hospital.
- Developing a literacy program.
- Instituting multicultural programs in the schools.
The students will construct a reflective portfolio on service and leadership after the completion of their project. HSLI will conclude with a poster session in which students present their projects.
Participants successfully completing their projects and portfolios will receive 3.5 semester hours of transferable college credit for Wartburg’s “Elements of Leadership” course and will be eligible for a $1,000 renewable scholarship to Wartburg.
During the past seven years, 114 students have participated in the program and many matriculated to Wartburg, including 11 who served as HSLI program mentors while at Wartburg.
“HSLI participants are forward-looking people from whom we can all learn something,” said Dr. Fred Waldstein, the director of Wartburg’s Institute for Leadership Education, Irving R. Burling Chair in Leadership, and professor of political science.
“It always gets to me how they’re just in high school, but really want to make a change in their community,” added Kate Glenney, a former two-time mentor and recent Wartburg graduate. “It’s really important to me that this program is nurturing leaders for the future.”