May 21, 2012
Zachary Siegel was chosen by the class of 2008 to deliver the speech for his class. He chose a Top Ten list
As PLCers the 50 of us have been through a lot together over the past four years. We have written elaborate case studies, sat through classes at ungodly times of night, and never once seen a welcome-fest concert at CU. We have been lost in the woods at orientation, spent all-nighters doing group community service projects; we even once slept on the floor of the Glen Miller Ball Room. So with all of these shared experiences, it might be surprising that it is something else entirely that has unified our class and connects us to every PLCer in the history of our leadership program. What is that familiar occurrence that binds all PLCers together? What is the one experience that brings our class, and every class of PLCers together? Answering the existential PLC question: “what the hell do you learn in a leadership program?”
We hear it from our families, our friends, our professors, our potential employers, I’m pretty sure Tiff’s baby even asked me the question when I met it for the first time. What does it mean to be in PLC and what takes place inside the walls of this of this prestigious “leadership program?” For this reason, it is with a great deal enthusiasm that today, as representative of the PLC class of 2008, I am excited to let you in on what it truly means to be a PLCer, to finally give you a better picture of what we have learned over the past 4 years. On graduation day, I think it is about time.
In the interest of being somewhat cliché, as graduation speeches usually are, I thought the best way to accomplish this task would be through a top-ten list. So, without further adieu, here are the top ten things I have learned over the past four years as a member of the President’s Leadership Class:
10) If you filter the “leader’s digest” (or all of Tiff’s correspondences) into your spam folder you have forfeited your right to ask the office questions about what was those emails
9) Bibliographic citations should be done in APA format, for all other citation formats (Chicago, MLA, etc.) intellectually inferior
8) You should do your best to make “week check” as long as possible, but refrain from sharing things that your physiatrist would find concerning
7) Ignore your non-PLC friend’s alternative acronyms for the letters P-L-C
-I would provide examples here, but none of the acronyms my friends have come up with are even close to appropriate
6) There is one girl in every PLC class will never totally grasp the concept of the “conservative” lecture dress code
5) It is an awful idea to allow PLCers to throw footballs in presentations of group community service projects
4) Attempting to talk to younger PLC classes about your first year experience is futile since curriculum consistency well….lacking
-For example: The activity formally known as a policy paper, for example, which was formal known as a case study, is now known as an RSE paper, until we come up with a better name for the EXACT SAME THING it next year.
3) One should never take the honorable Gordan Riggle’s name in vain
2) If you divide the number of hours worked by the dollar amount of scholarship one receives, student-staff members make far less than many children illegally working in factories in the developing world
1) And the number one thing I have learned as a PLCer over the past four years: It is inappropriate to refer to the PLC community as “us” and the non-PLC community as “degenerate mutant academic free-riders”
As you might have noticed, these ten things don’t have much to with leadership and in all seriousness; I think that is a good thing. After spending the past four years in this program, I still don’t know the definition of leadership, as I am I’m pretty sure none of us do. So it’s no surprise that many of us find it difficult to answer the question we hear on such a regular basis: What the heck do you learn in PLC?
Graduation will not stop people from asking us this question. In fact, I have no doubt that every time someone reads our resume, or asks about our undergraduate experience, it will come up. So it’s probably good time to start rehearsing an answer, if you haven’t already.
For me, the underlying lesson I have learned in PLC is pretty simple: leadership is action, and PLC has given us the tools to act. I have learned that simulations that ask us how to solve the problem of Malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa get us no closer to actually solving the problem of Malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa. I have learned that research papers (case studies, RSEs, whatever you want to call them) are informative, but lack one true aspect of leadership…. action.
PLC’s mission is to “develop extraordinary leaders,” but I don’t think that truly encapsulates what this program does. It is my firm belief that PLC doesn’t develop leaders at all, but instead molds its scholars into people who are self-aware and ready to act. It is graduation, therefore that marks an integral transition: to stop talking and start doing.
I don’t know if PLC has given me the skill-set to become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, but I am positive it has introduced me to 50 people who are poised and ready to change the world; 50 people who today are only college graduates, but someday will be extraordinary. So, what did I learn in PLC? I learned that leadership is not something to be defined or taught, but something to be done, and something that today we are all ready to do.
