The First Cohort of OSUN Student Leadership Fellows Report Back on Community Projects

May 30, 2023

The first cohort of OSUN Leadership Fellows have successfully completed the inaugural year of a new program dedicated to students who are serving in student government or are interested in developing their leadership skills. Over two semesters, sixteen Leadership Fellows representing ten OSUN campuses worked with and learned from one another while receiving ongoing virtual and in-person training to help strengthen leadership skills and other capacities, such as community engagement, communication, project management and implementation, and impact and outcome measurement.

Throughout the year, fellows developed, refined, and implemented projects they unveiled during Fall 2022; their work culminated with the presentation of final reports in May 2023. Students were asked to identify a need within their campus community and then design a project of their choosing that addresses this need, putting into practice the leadership and other skills learned during the program.

Pamela Niyongere from Ashesi University in Ghana founded a Think Tank club, a platform fostering cross-cultural communication, leadership skills, collaboration, and public speaking abilities. “Through these programmatic themes, the club enables individuals to come together, challenge conventional thinking, and work towards building a better and more inclusive society,” she reported.

Nesar Faizi from Bard College Berlin implemented a panel discussion during the World Wide Teach-In on Climate Justice, connecting the impacts of the climate crisis with the mental health of individuals in heavily affected places, such as Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Johard Heyl from Central European University in Austria worked with his institution’s student union to create toolkits that help student representative groups use institutional memory to better serve their communities. This effort is designed so future student unions can “engage, adapt, or build on the practices and experience we established throughout the last two years and can then be used for orientation,” he wrote.

Stephanie Phanor and Jean Benito Anity of UHELP (Haitian Education and Leadership Program) worked with OSUN’s Global Engagement Fellows and Global Debate Network to coordinate a hybrid conference on mediation and public speaking. They note in their report, "the best way to train and lead or serve a whole community is to teach them to use their words and their voice, to not be quiet but address problems and solve them."

Fabian Galindo of Universidad de los Andes in Colombia, in coordination with the UniAndes Student Council, created and disseminated a guide to "Best Practices in University Campuses on Disability and Equitable Access to Education," while simultaneously implementing a public awareness campaign on the same issues.

OSUN is exceedingly proud of the inaugural cohort of Student Leadership Fellows and looks forward to working with the next group of students eager to serve their communities during the coming academic year.

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