TransyLEAD

Earlier I mentioned another leadership conference that was coming up soon. Well, that happened yesterday, and it was phenomenal! First of all, we had an unbelievable keynote speaker—David Coleman, the real life “Hitch.” He is the “Dating Doctor” that the movie was based on, and he’s incredible. I have never laughed so hard during a speaker at a leadership conference. Conferences are kind of notorious for being long and boring, but Transy’s Student Government Association, Panhellenic and Student Activities Board really did a good job at making this one both beneficial and entertaining.

My first workshop was kind of a repeat of some of the information I had heard at my leadership conference in Michigan earlier in the month, but my next one gave me a completely different perspective on leadership and getting involved—it was a panel of professors at Transy giving their spiel about what it should mean to be a leader and how involved they think students should become. They pointed out that students too often over extend themselves simply to build their resume. They said that it’s okay to just lead in the classroom or lead just a single organization—they stressed passion over resume padding and told students that they would exude more effective leadership if they dedicated their time to fewer activities. This provided a look at leadership that I don’t often hear. As a campus leader myself, I have always pushed myself to get involved in any way I can, but I completely believe what they said, and I plan to make some cuts in my activities so I can become a more effective leader in the one or two organizations that I’m extremely passionate about.

My last workshop involved us in a discussion with a Transy Alum and now Kentucky State Representative. We talked about the process of getting elected to public office, responsibilities it entails, and how becoming a leader earlier in life sometimes leads almost naturally to serving in office. While I’m not interested necessarily in becoming an elected official, I found it interesting hearing the kinds of leadership roles she had taken prior to becoming elected and how it helped her build the relationships and responsibility necessary to win an election.

The conference concluded with another program by David Coleman—his “Dating Doctor” spiel (www.datingdoctor.com). He was honest—brutally honest—about relationships and everything involved in relationships. He had us belly laughing, interacting with each other, asking completely open questions, and questioning every relationship we have ever been in. Overall, it was wonderful. I could have listened to him talk all day, probably. I took away so much from the day, and I’m SO proud that my school hosts something like this every year =).

Facing Fears--Open Mic Night

As you have probably gathered from my blog so far, I’m completely in love with literature, and more specifically poetry. It reminds me to celebrate living—all aspects of living, even the hard times, and I can’t imagine having ever grown up not reading it. A reader of poetry from an early age (I wanted to marry Shel Silverstein when I was a really little girl, and to this day remember when I heard on the radio that he had died on my way to elementary school one day), I began attempting to write some of my own. While I go back and laugh at my early poems now, I have persisted in my pursuit of it ever since.

In high school, I was president of my creative writing club. I organized many coffee houses for student to come and present their works of creative writing, so when I heard that Transy’s literary magazine, The Transylvanian, was holding one of these open-mic nights, I became extremely excited. I, however, had grown incredibly self-conscious about my writing since entering into college. It’s that culture shock—you go from high school and being known for being really good at something, to coming to college and knowing there are countless people who have far greater ability than you. This is fine. I have loved reading some of the incredible poems and works of fiction written by my fellow students, but they nonetheless made me highly critical of my own work. So, the thought of getting up in front of a bunch of the best creative writers in the school, and my poetry professor and academic advisor, made me quite uncomfortable.

The poem I read, I wrote about this picture,

which I took in Shanghai, China during my May Term trip last year!

I realized, though, when the night rolled around, that this was my passion. My skills might not equal some of those who have studied it longer or practice more often, but writing my poems has brought contentment and clarity to my life, and I thought them worth sharing. My legs shook a little while performing them, but afterward, I felt an incredible sense of relief and satisfaction that reminded me how much sharing my love of poetry means to me. It’s so cool that Transy offers so many ways to express your passions—no matter what you’re passionate about, something will come along that will give you the opportunity to share it with others, and believe me, there’s no feeling comparable to the feeling you get after doing it.

Top 5 things I liked, (strike that), LOVED about Transy as a prospective student!

5.) Holding Doors
I think I have mentioned this before, but one of the coolest phenomena I noticed at Transy as a prospective student was the incredible concern every student seemed to have about holding doors for one another. I know this sounds like a really silly thing to focus on, but it really showed me the closeness of the students on this campus and the general kindness that runs rampant here. Listen, when I say people hold doors here, I mean they hold doors like it’s their job. As a prospective student, I once saw someone neglect to look behind them until a door was already beginning to close on someone behind them, RUN back to catch the door before it closed and hold it open. Since I’ve been a student, I have caught myself doing the same thing without thinking.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Like any community, there are factions—I’m not trying to say that everyone loves everyone and there are never any conflicts—that would be silly, but the fact that even these factions and quarrelling parties can put aside their differences to uphold such common courtesy as holding doors proved that Transy and the community here was different, and I wanted to be a part of it.

4.) Greek Life

My high school classmates would have laughed if I told them that I wanted to be in a sorority—I’m just not the usual “type,” you know…the “type?” Anyways…the last thing I thought I would fall in love with at a college would be their Greek system. I loved how Transy did not have Greek houses, which I thought offered a lot more regulation and proved a greater emphasis on solidarity within the Greek community and a greater focus on academics and service. Also, some of the women I met here (from ALL the sororities, mind you) were women I looked up to--strong women, women who took school and service seriously. I loved that. It was just different. You could tell that members of greek life had their priorities in line here, unlike on a lot of campuses, and it was something I genuinely saw building up my life and enhancing my academic and philanthropic performance rather than hindering (not something I saw from other greek systems). I guess that’s why Transy is ranked among the top Greek Schools in the nation. That’s a pretty big deal, folks, and I think it becomes apparent WHY as soon as you stay on campus for a night or two!

3.) Location, Location, Location

Lexington is wicked sweet. I love this place. I love attending a small school in a relatively large town. That way, when I want to get lost, and not see anyone from my campus for a little while, I can do it! Not to mention, Lexington is spread out. It’s not so overly crowded that you can’t still see trees and grass and open spaces between buildings. It’s not SO spread out, though, that you always have to drive to get where you want to be. I can, for example, walk to 3 coffee shops, the public library, countless restaurants, the opera house, numerous art galleries, the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning, Rupp Arena and tons of places to volunteer from campus if I so choose. I honestly couldn’t ask for a better location.

2.) Professors

I remember sitting in on classes when I came here for my overnight visit and thinking, WOW, this is not what I imagined, but it’s exactly what I want. I remember the first thing that the professors did when I walked in to sit in on their class was come up to me, shake my hand, introduce themselves and tell me when they would be in their office if I wanted to talk to them one-on-one. This kind of threw me off, because I was still under the impression that professors walked in the room, lectured, and walked out. This definitely doesn’t happen here. Every professor I have had so far derives great pleasure in helping their students. They are driven to help their students succeed and want that one-on-one interaction. I can’t tell you how many times a professor has saved me by sitting down with me in their office and listening to me talk out the problems I’m having with an assignment. Most of the time, just them sitting there and listening helps me talk the solution out to myself, but when I have been truly stuck, they don’t hesitate to offer up suggestions and encouragement (and sometimes even tea and cookies!) to help me along. They’re great and I don’t know that I have ever appreciated a group of people more than the faculty at Transylvania.

1.) Liberal Arts Education

One of the things I asked our University President, Dr. Shearer, when I came for my scholarship interview was, “Why is a private liberal arts education more valuable than, say, an education at a state school?” Well, I don’t really remember what he said, but it honestly doesn’t really matter what he said, because while I was at Transy, I lived the answer. During my visit, I sat in on a Foundations of Liberal Arts class, a Chemistry class, and an English class, and the common thing I noticed in each was the tendency to make reference to or use other academic fields to explain concepts in their own field. It was amazing to me how in the English class I heard a reference to a psychological phenomenon to question the believability of a character’s behavior, and what’s more—everyone understood what that student was talking about. I just saw countless examples of how a liberal arts education allows you to integrate ideas from across the academic spectrum to develop a more complete knowledge of the subject you choose to focus on here. It’s incredible, and it’s not something I think you could readily find at a larger institution. But don’t take my word for it! Come visit us and see for yourself!

Leadership Conference--Detroit

**I sincerely apologize. I have had these blogs written for quite some time, but I ran into a pretty rough week last week and forgot to post them. I hope you enjoy them! Thanks for being patient with me! I have some exciting things coming up to share with you, so be on the lookout!**

I think I forgot to blog about it, but last semester, my sorority sisters voted me into the position of Academic Excellence Chairperson on our Executive Committee! That means I get to come up with creative ways to keep my sisters inspired to study and such. It was kind of the perfect position for me, given my love of school and love of my sorority. Anyways, every year my sorority has national leadership conferences for all new executive committee members to attend, which was held in Ypsilanti, Michigan this year, a city right outside Detroit.

Executive Committee from Transylvania. I'm in the pink jacket!

We drove up on Friday after classes, and 6 hours, one Cincinnati traffic jam and many many embarrassing sing-a-longs later, we arrived. Exhausted after the trip, we crashed pretty much immediately, and woke up around 7:30 in the morning to attend our first day’s activities. In addition to learning about effective leadership in our respective positions, our headquarters brought in some extremely valuable speakers. “The résumé girl” (http://theresumegirl.com/) came to give us tips on building our résumés, preparing for interviews and landing internships and jobs. It was great, and super beneficial, and I was so glad that I had the opportunity to attend the conference especially for this.

The other great thing about these conferences, which, trust me, will come up all over the place during your college career, is the networking opportunities! I met some great people over the weekend—people who had some great ideas that our chapter could put to good use. I have had so many opportunities like this to hone my leadership skills since I have come to college, and I can’t count the number of opportunities I have had after having attended these development sessions. I’m actually planning on attending another similar conference here on campus soon. It’s called TransyLEAD, and it’s an all campus leadership conference that takes place every year. I’ll definitely keep you posted on some of the workshops I attend there! Until, then, though, I have to get back to the grind! Take care!

Some of the officers from Kentucky schools! (Hooray networking!)

Ice Storm 2009!

As I’m sure most of you know, (or maybe some of you don’t, which is completely cool, because that means this blog will be ALL the more interesting =D), Kentucky was kind of pummeled by a nasty ice storm a couple of weeks ago.

The concept of a “snow day,” or getting out of class for any reason, is kind of a joke at Transy, given that it’s a whopping 5 minute walk to the furthest academic building from residential side (and you can cut that down to 2-3 with a good pair of tennis shoes!). But on Tuesday of this fateful week, Transylvania students checked “Columns,” our daily updated website to give us campus news, to find out that classes after 1:30 had been canceled. Facebook was on the brink of overheating with status updates like “WHAT?! Class canceled!? No Way!” and “________ doesn’t know what to do with herself” or “SNOOOOOOOOOOOOW DAAAY!” …You get the drift. It was a big deal.

The ice continued to fall throughout the night followed by a heavy snow on Wednesday morning. Transy students, 19-22 years olds, turned into kids again and could be seen playing out in the ice all over campus. All classes were canceled Wednesday, as the ice made it dangerous to brave even a 3 minute walk to class and even more dangerous for professors to make the drive in the first place. One of our residence halls lost power, so everyone piled into the cafeteria for lunch and a good time.

It was really cool to see practically the whole campus together enjoying their day off of school, and it was fun to play around in the snow a little, but for me, it began to get old quickly. Later that night, for example, I had to brave a walk to the library (the BEST place to study on campus, hands down) to work on my ever increasing mound of homework, and Lexington had to shut down power on academic side because they had a transformer on fire somewhere. I was ready for it to be over.

I know I have been slacking on my blog a bit—I’ll explain that possibly later. But today, I watched as the last piles of snow melted under the blanket of 60 degree whether, I watched as coats came off, and thought I’d recap the storm before spring rolled around. All this reminds me of a poem…

Cold Spring
The last few gray sheets of snow are gone,
winter’s scraps and leavings lowered
to a common level. A sudden jolt
of weather pushed us outside, and now
this larger world once again belongs to us.
I stand at the edge of it, beside the house,
listening to the stream we haven’t heard
since fall, and I imagine one day thinking
back to this hour and blaming myself
for my worries, my foolishness, today’s choices
having become the accomplished
facts of change, accepted
or forgotten. The woods are a mangle
of lines, yet delicate, yet precise,
when I take the time to look closely.
If I’m not happy it must be my own fault.
At the edge of the lawn my wife
bends down to uncover a flower, then another.
The first splurge of crocuses.
And for a moment the sweep and shudder
of the wind seems indistinguishable
from the steady furl of water
just beyond her.
-Lawrence Raab