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Introduction to who I am and the symposium

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Introduction to who I am and the symposium

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Hello everyone!

My name is Melina Bradley. I am a Junior at the University of Pittsburgh where I am studying Human Resources Management, International Business, Economics and Spanish. On campus I am currently serving as the President of Phi Beta Lambda, a professional business organization. I am an ambassador in the Blue and Gold Society, an ambassador within Pitt Business, an ambassador for the Outside of the Classroom Curriculum, and a volunteer within the Pitt Alumni Student Network. Outside of school and extracurriculars, I love to read, be out in nature, and to spend quality time with the people I love.

The ACC Leadership Symposium brings together delegates from each of the 15 Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) colleges and universities with the intention of developing a community amongst these undergraduate students. The University of Virginia will be hosting the symposium this year with the theme being "Pivot with Purpose". We will be using this theme to guide conversations around the relationship between global and local issues as we work collaboratively to create innovative initiatives that advance students' capacity of global leadership.

I am so excited that you are interested in following along on this journey with me!

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As a sort of prequel to the Symposium, I attended the Panther Leadership Summit at Pitt on February 3rd. The half-day conference centered around the topic of "discourse and dialogue." This opportunity allowed me to connect with other leaders across campus and in the greater Pittsburgh community.

We learned about a variety of critical leadership development-based topics and methods that will allow us to be more dynamic, resilient and reflective leaders which in turn empowers us to make an impact in the community.

The first breakout session that I was in that day focused on combating Imposter Syndrome. Through speakers sharing their insights and breakout group conversations, I walked away from that session with the message that struggle is not validation that you are in the wrong place. We spoke at lengths about staying motivated through Imposter Syndrome by tackling one task at a time, controlling the controllable, and giving space for everyone to feel valuable.

The second breakout session I attended was titled, "Leading While Maintaining Friendships." This conversation was incredibly grounding for me as it reminded me that the work we each do matters, the title does not. We are all so much more than the role that we are in and meaningful friendships will last longer than a role. A large part of the conversation was about creating boundaries and we read excerpts from Brené Brown's "Dare to Lead."

The next component of the event was a TedTalk series where we heard from 5 speakers about a topic of their choosing. The first speaker crafted journal prompts for us about goal setting and deciding the trajectory of our careers or roles. The second speaker spoke of the 4 Cs of Leadership: compromise, confidence, consistency, and connection. Confidence comes from consistency, so we need to be consistent with our connections, and we need to be able to compromise with those that we are connected too. Next, we learned about the importance of establishing a mentor and friends who will serve as pillars and mirrors in our lives to support us and reflect with us on decisions. Leadership is not a solo journey. The 4th speaker taught us the art of negotiating. Her biggest piece of advice was to enter each scenario with a "if you ... then we ..." statement to convey the desired outcome. The final speaker of the series spoke about the value of human connection. She told us that we can't hate someone we understand and that interaction is a gift.

I had an incredible day at this conference learning from my peers, campus representatives, and community leaders! Huge shoutout to Therese Pitman for an incredible event!

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We had dinner in the Rotunda which used to be the original library at UVA

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Day 1 - Welcome Dinner and Opening Remarks

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Day 1 - Welcome Dinner and Opening Remarks

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The Rotunda is the focal point of UVA's campus. It was a beautiful location for the kickoff of the symposium. We were seated with the group members for our case study. We heard from UVA's planning team for this event about the expectations for the weekend. We next heard from Kenyon Bonner who serves as the Vice President and Chief Student Affairs Officer about "The Power of Resilience in Leadership/ Adapting and Navigating change." Hearing from him meant a lot to me as he had previously served at the University of Pittsburgh for 20 years in various roles. Bonner spoke a lot about being conscientious about pulling others up as you climb, being mindful that passions may take a while and they may change, and he reminded us that being able to participate in this symposium was a gift. He definitely set the tone for us to move into the weekend with an enthusiastic mindset.

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Day 1 - Introduction to the Case Studies

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Day 1 - Introduction to the Case Studies

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I was a member of Group 2 for this segment of the symposium. We had students from 8 different schools in our group as well as 2 advisors from different schools. The case we were given pertained to First Generation, Low Income students feeling supported at their school. We were charged with developing solutions to a lacking mentorship program, funding challenges, and website information gaps. We used this first meeting to set group norms, establish a rapport with one another and to share work that each of our own schools was already doing.

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UVA hosted us all at 1515 which is a vibrant student hub located on the main street of campus. To structure the initial networking, we were all given pins or stickers representing our school and were challenged to collect something from all 15 schools present. We played pool, arcade games, and spent the time familiarizing ourselves with the other delegates and their schools.

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We were in the Newcomb Hall Ballroom for the majority of the day 

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The theme for Day 2 was “Navigating Challenges with Purposeful Leadership." Right after breakfast, we heard from 3 UVA students about their leadership on grounds and their recommendations to us. The first student we heard from was Syrell Grier who spoke about "Developing Strategies in Leadership Roles." Syrell encouraged all of us to find our niche, build a circle of influence, learn our teams so we can delegate purposefully and to not get caught in paralysis by analysis. Next, we heard from Sanjeev Kumar who recently graduated from UVA. He spoke about "Resiliency in Student Leadership Roles." Through sharing stories from his own experience, Sanjeev asked all of us to consider how the physical environments we operate in can make people feel included. He boiled leadership down to 2 options: do nothing or do something. His narrative assured us that no matter who we are in the room, we still have a voice. The third and final speaker for this series was Justin Gabriel who spoke about "Communication and Teamwork." The questions he addressed were, how can we put empathy into words and how can I foster empathy and trust in a relationship I am not a part of? He told us to keep in mind that it is not what we say, but how we say it. He recommended to us to always listen first and then emphasize positive words. I really enjoyed hearing from each of these speakers who taught us so much by being vulnerable in sharing their own stories and experiences.

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The first group activity I participated in was "DIY University." In groups with new students, we received instructions on building a new ACC school that tackled a specific social issue. We had about 25 minutes to design the school, the budget, admissions goals and more. My group discussed building a school in Alaska to service Alaskan Native communities by providing specialty courses in sustainability, economics, finance and regenerative agriculture.

The second group activity was the Pipeline Challenge. We were with our case study groups for this activity. The scenario we were told to operate within was certainly unique. We were to act as environmental engineers in the forest cleaning up a toxic waste spill in a river. We used ping pong balls to represent the waste, pvc pipes to move the waste and a bucket as our dump site. The trick was, if the ping pong ball touched any part of your body, you could no longer use that part and if the ball dropped, you had to participate in the challenge with a blind fold. This exercise was a hilarious team building activity that showed the importance of communication, looking out for our team members, adaptability and a little bit of hand eye coordination.

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After our activities, we had 45 minutes with our group to begin compiling solutions to the case we had received the night before. My group decided to break up into 3 committees to address the 3 areas of concern found in our case study prompt. I was on the mentorship committee with Jeremy and Nadin. We used the time to create a three pronged approach to solving the issues with the existing FGLI mentorship structure in our case. The idea with this multifaceted approach was to meet students at different points in their college career. Our first idea was to create a peer to peer mentoring program that connects upperclass FGLI students with high school students who have committed to the university and would fall into the FGLI category. This is important to allow the incoming student to have some kind of rapport and sense of comfort with someone before coming to school. Our second idea was to create a 2 week introductory program for FGLI students during orientation week and the week prior. Fully funded the students would move in a week early, meet their mentors in person, attend networking events, hear from student affairs departments and the financial aid office, go on trips into the community surrounding the school, etc. In the second week, the students would participate in the regular orientation week while also attending a few extra, targeted networking events. Our third and final idea that we landed on was creating a seminar course targeted specifically for first semester FGLI students. Each week there would be presentations from FGLI graduates or other guest speakers who could run workshops on professional development, scholarship applications, personal finance, etc.

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Day 2 - Cultivating Self Leadership and Wellness

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Day 2 - Cultivating Self Leadership and Wellness

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The first breakout I was in during this time was "Mindfulness for ACC Student Leaders" with John Schorling who is a Professor of Medicine and oversees the UVA Mindfulness Center. He taught us that self awareness is crucial for leadership because we have to be able to manage ourselves before supporting others. We went through 5 different mindfulness exercises and after each one talked about the different parts of the brain that are activated at different levels of stress so that we could really see how the mindfulness brought our stress levels down. As we looked at the stress zone transitions Dr. Schorling advised us to always name the emotion we are feeling because if we can name it, we can tame it.

The second breakout session, was about the Six Dimensions of Wellness and was put on by Dr. Joshua Epps who serves within the UVA Division for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Programs & Council. To introduce the topic of wellness, Dr. Epps talked about needing to love yourself to want to grow and develop as a person and a leader. He talked a lot about the importance of finding an accountability partner, someone to remind you of your goals and what inspired them and will make sure you're working towards them in a timely manner. This aids in maintaining purpose driven leadership. After this introduction, we talked about the Six Dimensions of Wellness: occupational, physical, social, intellectual, spiritual and emotional. In small groups, we were given a topic and instructed to develop a skit that connected that topic with the Six Dimensions of Wellness. My group got goal setting. In our skit, we had a frustrated, overwhelmed student meeting with an advisor who felt behind in all facets of her wellness. We had group members act as each category of wellness who designed a goal for the student in their respective area. It was a really fun, interactive activity!

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Working outside! AP was showing me the website he built.

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Our team used our final session before presentations to come back together as a full group, report on what our committees came up with and to make sure all of our ideas were cohesive. we designed a presentation that showed our mission, goals, plans and vision. One group member, AP, even went so far as to design a mock website to combat the concerns about the website having information gaps. If you're interested in looking at our presentation, here it is! https://www.canva.com/design/DAF9FEuE_jI/B1E99wW0uOf7DR90aFo0Ag/edit?utm_content=DAF9FEuE_jI&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton

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The students featured on this panel represented organizations from all parts of UVA. The first question they were asked was "how would you define self leadership and how do you cultivate it?" The students talked about leadership being a demonstration of one's values and morals, the desire to be in community with others, taking time for self-reflection and pouring back into the community that pours into you. Next, they talked about practices to balance responsibilities and wellness. They brought up making a list of priorities to see what you're willing to give up, saying no and establishing boundaries, recognizing your bandwidth, surrounding yourself with people who empower you and spreading joy. The third question was "What communities or resources have supported you?" Almost all of the students talked about the great benefit of finding a mentor who can ground us and guide us and making sure to have a variety of mentors so that we have people who know different niche parts of us and people who know us holistically. After that, the mediator asked "how do you navigate setbacks in collaboration with your team?" The students talked about differentiating between personal and business, recognizing that everyone is doing what they think is best to reach the common goal, grounding ourselves and the team in the purpose and reinvigorating that passion and always being honest and transparent. The final question was "what advice would you give to your younger self?" The students said to make mistakes but have a safety net and always own up to those mistakes. They also talked about being ambitious and being kind to yourself and those around you.

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A group of us in the center of the lawn in UVA's Academical Village

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Day 2 - Historical Tour of UVA's Grounds

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Day 2 - Historical Tour of UVA's Grounds

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UVA has a rich, intense history. We saw everything from the room Edgar Allen Poe stayed in to the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers. The memorial was built to honor the lives and legacies of the enslaved laborers at UVA. Throughout the tour, I couldn't help feeling a little ill at ease as we saw some of these sights, but I admire the transparency from UVA as they work to uncover the truth about the existence of enslaved laborers on grounds.

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Saturday night we went to Bowlero in Charlottesville for another social event! This was a great way to decompress after a long day and to relax before our presentations the following day!

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8 different student groups presented on 4 different case studies. The groups presented back to back with the other group who had the same case as them and then the audience was able to ask both groups questions. I was so impressed with the solutions that other students had to social issues that can be find across all of our schools. I truly did leave feeling empowered and inspired to bring ideas back to Pitt.