Metaphor During one of the final class meetings of the fall 2014 Developing Effective Teams class, my professor, Mark informed all of the students that there were two open spots on the Leadership Interterm trip to New Orleans. I had heard about the course from many of my friends throughout the years and thought that it would be a good class to take. I was also in need of a break from Orange County. With one phone call to my mom and some quick paper work, I was enrolled and ready for an adventure. On the first day of Leadership Through the Eyes of the Storm: A Hurricane Katrina Case Study, I met the twelve other students who would soon become part of my favorite memories at Chapman. We spent the first week of the class learning a bit about …show more content…
My classmates and I rose to the challenge of painting the massive house and learned new skills of working on tall ladders. One of our professors, Chris Hutchison brought to our attention, “sometimes you are on the ladder and sometimes you are the ladder holder.” This altered my view of servant leadership because I was able to see it from a bottom-up approach with the ladder holder leader literally being on the bottom. Seeing servant leadership in a role that was centered on serving changed my perspective and I came to understand servant leadership as assisting others whether leadership is the intention or …show more content…
For my senior thesis, I spent an entire year researching the benefits of community service in secondary schools. The idea from my thesis was a result of my interest in service and my passion for servant leadership. My intention was to utilize all that I know from leadership and alternative forms of learning and combine it with my knowledge of education. The result was a greater understanding of the importance of implementing community service requirements in schools. Many high school students benefit from community service in a variety of ways including personally and civically. A study by Neimi concluded that community service involvement could lead to an increase in political knowledge, enhance participatory skills, and can alter some attitudes of participants (Neimi). Another study found that students who participated in community service showed improvement in problem solving, decision-making, self-efficiency, and competency