Working with student leaders has made me realize how brand new leadership and advocacy is to young students. While we might consider a college aged student to be an adult (at least legally), they are still new to branching out in the world and their personal growth. As such, I want to provide an experience for the student government officers to learn not only their roles within student government, but how to be an effective leader. By the end of their training, the officers will understand their role and how to accomplish the tasks required of it, but also feel more comfortable in leading and advocating for their fellow students.
Immediately some students are going to come into the student government association (SGA) with more experience in leadership or even other SGAs. They are going to be ahead of other students in understanding jargon and in expectations. I have seen it numerous times at this point where students have no leadership experience and are afraid to ask for assistance until they are so far behind that their peers are wanting to remove them from office. I hope with this minicourse/training that they can understand their role quicker and feel more comfortable to have a set of tools to begin leading. It does not simply stop with this one training, but another side goal would be increasing the awareness that it is okay to not be experienced yet and to ask questions (more than likely this is by establishing a positive and trusting student and advisor relationship immediately).
The target audience of my minicourse will be community college students that are involved with student government. My college has a current average age of 22.1 and vary in race and ethnicity (CSM, 2025). For the student government leaders, their ages will usually range from 17 to 24, though students may be older or begin younger. With this age, most students will be freshly graduated from high school, or recently graduated, so their leadership experience and opportunities will be on the more limited end.
Students that commit to joining student government are required to be elected, or appointed if positions are not filled after elections. While the positions are advertised and the student government constitution is readily available on our school website, elections are not massively competitive at this time, so simply running either guarantees you that position or any open position if you lose. This is important as this shows the students to be particularly motivated in some regard for the position, whether that is experience for resumes/applications, wanting to create change on campus, or the monetary incentive (each position receives a scholarship).
To remain part of the Student Government Association, students must hold and maintain a 2.0 while in office and be registered for at least 6 credit hours. Any student that does not meet these requirements is subject to removal from their office. Going in, this is known by all of the applications and is checked prior to them being able to be placed on the ballot.
Overall, the target audience for this minicourse are going to be student government officers, with an average age between 17 - 24, with the potential for outliers. Students will have varying experience in student government and leadership, with the most experience coming from high school student government associations that will have different structures and abilities. These will be credit college students and will be enrolled at least part time each semester. With the structure of our SGA, they will have some motivation to be an officer. By the end of the course, we hope to have met them where they are at in their leadership journey and have them able to act as an effective SGA officer and budding leader. They do not need to be prepared to run the United States of America, but being able to host a meeting and use Robert's Rules of Orders, as well as identifying their leadership strengths and weaknesses and some strategies for themselves is an attainable goal at present.
I believe that my minicourse could fall into a few different course types depending on the route I ultimately decide to take. Step-by-Step works really well for understanding things like parlimentary procedure. This encapsulates everything from committee meetings, how to make changes as a student leader, and parts of their positions. Informational and How-To appeal as well in describing and teaching about leadership as a whole. But the type that appeals to me the most and fits best, in my opinion, is the Onboarding Course. We're looking to onboard the new and returning officers in student government into the SGA and their specific committees. This can include teaching them about leadership and advocacy. This will have them learn how to follow Robert's Rules of Order and what their positions require. They will learn everything they need by completing the onboarding course over the summer, then be able to receive more support throughout the year. This helps with the experience issue between each student, while we would focus on newcomers there can be adaptations to those returning or with more experience (and a refresher on all the procedures is even needed for my coworkers and I).
There was never a question with this design choice, the course would work best as a hyflex modality. While I would love to make it fully asynchronous for my own sake, we already have 3 meetings implemented into the summer that we can and should use for this minicourse. By offering the course in a hyflex modality, we are increasing the amount of students that can attend the trainings. It is important for the students to be able to meet and work in real time together as they will be working together throughout the year. They will share an office space, collaborate in their meetings and at events, and be looking to find their voices to best advocate for each other and other students.
Adding an asynchronous option to allow for additional training and support for those that are less experienced would be a good move as well, making this more hy-flex/blended. By allowing for the students to have asynchronous work outside of the hy-flex meetings, they can have real world examples to gain experience and comfort in their committees, gain some comfort in their position/role, and see some of the examples students have brought to the SGA before so they can learn how to handle inquiries or suggestions. I believe realistically the course would rely on hy-flex the most with the augment of asynchronous work being added (possibly over time).
By the end of this course, student leaders will be able to:
Define what leadership and advocacy mean to them.
Identify and describe their preferred leadership style/approach.
Create actionable goals for themselves and their campus officers to complete over the next year.
Actively participate in Student Government meetings using Robert's Rules of Order.
Complete their positional roles and responsibilities as defined by the SGA Constitution and Bylaws.
References:
College of Southern Maryland. (2025). College of southern maryland student characteristics. CSM.