Tier 3: Community Leadership

Components

  1. Student must have completed at least one tier before beginning service placement.
  2. Student must complete a detailed Learning Plan.
  3. Student must complete 20 hours of service (service placement/project is to be found by the student).
  4. Hours may be with an organization that a student has an existing connection with, but hours cannot count if they take place prior to the placement being approved for the Leadership Education Program.
  5. Completion of the reflection activities and journals listed below.

Application Process

  1. Login to Western Connect and click on Leadership. Find the Tier 3 tab, and then click on Apply
  2. You will now have access to the application form. Select the organization where you want to complete your service, and arrange for a suitable service placement (see below for resources on finding a placement).
  3. Fill out the application package, and review the package with your supervisor. You may want to print the form as a PDF before submitting, so that you can bring this document to your supervisor.
  4. Have your supervisor provide any feedback to the application. Once the application is complete, put your name in and submit the application.
  5. The Tier 3 coordinator will review your application and approve it or ask for a follow up. Once the application is approved, you will be notified by email and will be able to start your placement.

Service Placement Selection

Site selection criteria:

  1. The purpose of tier three of the program is to give participants an opportunity to develop and enhance their leadership skills, putting into practice everything that they learned in previous workshops. With that in mind, it's recommended that you choose a placement that allows for ample opportunity to flex your leadership muscles. For example, many students end up volunteering with local non-profits. That's often a great fit, but the nature of the work is also important. If you're creating, implementing and executing events as part of a team, or mentoring others those are likely good fits. If however, your volunteering is limited to selling 50/50 tickets, that's probably not enough to really develop your leadership skills in a way that we're hoping.
  2. Like any skill, leadership takes time to hone. We don't expect that your journey will be done at the end of this placement. Still, the placement needs to be intensive enough that it allows you to see some growth and development as a leader. As a result, for the purposes of this program a minimum of 20 hours of service are required to be successful.

Students are responsible for finding and arranging their own service placement. To do this, the following resources are available to you:

  1. Pillar Nonprofit Network Searchable Database of Volunteer Postings
  2. Western Serves Network

Contact the community organization and arrange for someone at site to act as Site Supervisor. Meet with site supervisor and go over the purpose of the Leadership Education Program and application package.

Service Placement

Students will do no less than 20 hours of service. The specific arrangements on how students will fulfill the 20 hours will be at the discretion of the site supervisor and approved by the Tier 3 Supervisor. The student will be responsible for keeping track of his or her own hours.

Reflection Activities

  1. Students will complete a written or electronic journal throughout their placement (i.e. daily or as a set of hours are finished). Save your journal as a PDF document.
  2. At the end of the experience, students are to submit a 2-3 page paper reflecting on their service placement. The paper should focus on your development as a leader throughout the Leadership Education Program and can reflect on the skills you learned in previous workshops and how they applied to your volunteer placement. Please save your reflection paper as a PDF. If you need further guidance to anchor your paper, consider focusing on some of the following questions
    - What was it you were doing in your work with the community organization?
    - What was the impact of what you were doing?
    - What leadership skills did you utlize in your work?
    - How did you utilize those skills?
    - What were some of the challenges you faced as a leader in this environment?
    - In what area of leadership did you see the most growth? Why?
    - What were some of the most rewarding aspects of your work?
    - How did the work you accomplished influence you internally, as well as your perception of the community you worked with?
    - How do you hope to continue to build the leadership skills that you utilized during your experience?
  3. Students will complete the Learning Plan Chart with specific examples of how each learning objective was accomplished. Journals are to be handed in at the end of the experience through the Reflection module. Login to Western Connect and click on Leadership. Find the Tier 3 module, and then click on Reflection. Fill out the learning plan chart, and attach both PDF documents (Journal and Reflection Paper)

For any questions about Tier 3, please email: lep_tier3@uwo.ca