Wilson Tsai, an economics major interested in business leadership, lives at The Colleges at La Rue where the campus Center for Leadership Learning is located. (Karin Higgins/UC Davis photo)
The Colleges at La Rue is leadership headquarters
Before coming to UC Davis, Wilson Tsai thought he knew a lot about leadership.
But the campus — and three years of intensive leadership training — has opened his eyes.
Tsai, a senior economics major, grew up on his family's fish farm in Central California, where he started his first job at the age of 10 and became co-manager by age 14. In addition to learning discipline and how to strategize, living and working on his family's fish farm was Tsai's first heavy dose of leadership.
"There is no single 'best' form of leadership," he says. '"Every situation is different. On the farm, I learned first-hand which style is most appropriate in almost every contingency possible."
After coming to UC Davis, he decided that fish farm experience would not cut it.
To really make a name for himself and prepare for his future career, Tsai believed that he needed to go beyond his family ties to gain additional leadership and work experience. The Student Leadership Development Series offered a solution.
Encourages community bonding
Tsai lives at The Colleges at La Rue, which also serves as the campus's center for leadership involvement.
"'I don't know of any other apartment complex that encourages community bonding like The Colleges does," says Tsai, who serves as the series' student coordinator. "We even have our own Facebook group!"
For the past two years, the campus newspaper The California Aggie has ranked The Colleges at La Rue as the No. 1 place for continuing students to live. As well as its engaging social events , the complex draws students in for its luxurious living quarters, and its convenient location on campus next to the Activities and Recreation Center and the Recreation Pool.
Boasting natural lighting, the apartments are spacious and open, with up to four bedrooms and a combined kitchen-dining-living room that contributes to the shared-student living experience.
The Colleges opened in 2000, offering 197 apartments that are organized in separate buildings. About 550 undergraduates and a small number of graduate students live in the apartments, which are located on La Rue Road. Students with a 2.0 minimum grade point average are chosen through their essay and resume.
‘You don't have to go all over the place to look for leadership opportunities. You can just come to one place.’
Cheryl Purifoy, Center for Leadership Learning
Enter a lottery for the living space
Applicants are admitted to the program first and then are allowed to enter the lottery for a living space. Once chosen, students can live there through the end of their undergraduate career.
It is a popular place. According to Cheryl Purifoy, The Colleges' senior program manager, by mid-April, more than 550 students were vying for close to a hundred living spaces expected to open in the 2007-08 academic year.
At the beginning of this school year, the Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies restructured the leadership program at The Colleges. The on-campus apartment complex now serves as the program's hub, and all its components rest under one umbrella: the Center for Leadership Learning.
In partnership with Student Affairs, the Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies and the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, the center offers any undergraduate the opportunity to indulge in every aspect of leadership learning.
Valuable part of educational objectives
Making sure students develop leadership skills is a valuable part of the campus's educational objectives, and the center's administrators embrace this notion entirely, according to Gail Martinez, assistant vice provost for undergraduate studies.
The leadership program is all-encompassing and attracts hundreds of students each year to a variety of leadership education opportunities, including classes, community-building whitewater-rafting trips, guest speaker seminars and film viewings.
The continuing students who live in the apartment complex are part of the campus' Leadership Learning Community, a community centered on living and learning about leadership.
Applying and moving to The Colleges is a natural next step for students who lived and participated in the Leadership Exploration-themed residence hall during their first year, Martinez says.
Encouraging freshman to apply
Given his own experiences at the Leadership Learning Community, Tsai highly encourages these students, in preparing for their second year, to apply to live in The Colleges' similar living-learning community.
At the apartments, not only do students benefit from academic community events they attend each quarter, such as leadership learning seminars, peer-led round table discussions and professional skill development workshops, but, as Tsai said, the community also focuses heavily on community building through a number of other activities such as movie and game nights, barbecues, and outdoor adventures.
Hands-on activities
Another program under the umbrella is the Student Leadership Development Series, a program designed to help students develop a record of leadership experiences and earn a leadership development certificate through interactive, hands-on activities.
The main components of this program are the leadership seminars in which students actively engage in learning about and practicing hands-on leadership skills.
"The workshops provide students with valuable knowledge they can apply to real life," says Tsai. "I have walked away from them more enlightened."
A schedule of new seminars is created every quarter, with a heavy focus on professional development in the spring, designed to help those preparing to graduate and enter post-college life.
Closely integrated with this program is the contemporary leadership minor, a set of courses with an internship component that engages students to think critically, self-reflect and problem solve while learning about the foundations of leadership.
Annual student leadership conference
In addition, the Center for Leadership Learning hosts an annual student leadership conference. As a kick-off to the new school year, the fall conference will unite students who already have leadership experience with students just establishing their own.
"We have a center that has one-stop shopping for leadership," says Purifoy. "You don't have to go all over the place to look for leadership opportunities. You can just come to one place."
The program components all work together to give students customizable, flexible but thorough opportunities to experience and learn about leadership.
For instance, students' coursework for the contemporary leadership minor can contribute to their Student Leadership Development Series certifications, while students' courses and seminars for the contemporary leadership minor can also contribute to their Leadership Learning Community participation requirements, if they live there.
As little or as much as you want
"The program was designed so you can get as little or as much [leadership experience] as you want along the way," says Martinez of Undergraduate Studies.
Achieving such experience at a large university can help students gain confidence in their academic, professional, and personal performances, as well as perfect skills applicable in both the classroom and workplace.
"Leadership is having a positive impact on others," says Martinez, and the experience UC Davis offers is "education that feeds lifelong learning."
Understanding and constantly developing leadership skills is invaluable to any student.
But to get the most out of the Center for Leadership Learning, Tsai recommends students "to have the passion and the drive to learn about leadership and be part of something big."