Lead WT is a two-year academic certificate program at WTAMU that aims at leadership development for students. It is a co-curricular program, allowing students to garner academic credit hours while counting as an internship.
“The easy answer [to what the students gain from Lead WT] is their resumes will look amazing for future employment,” Lead WT Coordinator Amber Black said. “However, I think the better answer is that our students are really developing as leaders. They are doing a lot of self-discovery of their strengths and weaknesses and how to overcome [those weaknesses]. It is really cool to see the culture of leadership on campus and the want for WT students to leave a lasting legacy.”
Black said thanks to a grant funded by the Texas Pioneer Foundation, Lead WT was able to kick off in the spring of 2012. Students in the program are required to complete 30 hours of community leadership services and work together on a group project either on campus or in the surrounding community. In accompaniment with their community leadership work, Lead WT students have been taking field trips to meet professional leaders from many different fields.
“We took a trip to Dalhart to meet Dyke Rogers,” junior Agricultural Media and Communications major Marley Lee said. “He made his entire life out of nothing and has become a millionaire, but [one thing he mentioned] was that he wished he had some sort of leadership courses when he was coming up.”
“I went into the program with the expectation of getting a lot to put on my resume,” Lee said, “but it has changed to analyzing other leaders and learning from them. There are a lot of leaders out there and it really shows me that there are many different kinds of leaders who contribute in their own way.”
Fellow junior Agricultural Media and Communications major Kelby Koelder said she has seen her Lead WT peers grow both as a family and professionally.
“We do a lot of work with people from different majors,” Koelder said. “I have personally gained confidence in my ability to be a leader, to get out of my comfort zone and network better.”
