26
edits
Changes
no edit summary
<font size="2">The most important thing to look for in a leadership core team, and most often the most difficult thing to find is other students who align with your student group's initial mission. It takes more than just being interested in university innovation to want to expand an I&E student group, it takes passion and drive steming from past experiences, and future ambitions. You shouldn't have to teach them about everything your institution has to offer, they should already know many of the things that you are looking to work on. If they teach you something that you didn't know about your school's student I&E system, they might just be a good match for your team. This is a struggle for all leadership teams starting out. Members need to be ready to stick around for the long run, and if they are not passionate about the subject matter at hand, the chances of them doing that might just be very small. Spend a considerable ammount of time making sure that your team is up to these standards. Provide lots of work opportunities for your team early to see who is ready for the responsibility and who might not be able to take the heat.</font>
= <span style="font-size:x-large;">Finding the right members to move you forward</span> = <font size="2">After a group's leadership team, its members will take it from just a startup to a thriving organization with the ability to influence I&E change all across your institution. Cross-cutting student groups need to focus on finding students with diverse backgrounds and many connections to other students, faculty, and community entities across different diciplines. Here are some techniques to get your student group noticed, and rope in the members to take it to the next level.<br/><br/></font> == <font size="2"><span style="font-size:large;">The cold-calling method</span></font><br/> == <font size="2">What many see as the best way to reach students is sometimes the most difficult (and depending on how you do it, embarassing and fun). Simply stepping outside on campus with your leadership team with materials that attract students (free food, shiny objects, or simply a smile and a wave) can get your group noticed better than anything else, but it takes courage and a creative mindset. Many groups fall into the pit of fliers, posters, and telling people what they're all about. I'm sure any student has experienced this, bustling from class to class, trying as hard as you can to cold-shoulder all the fliers and "excuse me's" coming from people on the sidewalk. Instead, focus on asking questions. People inherently love to chat about themselves, and when it comes to student I&E, talking about themselves is exactly what prospective group members need to do.</font> <font size="2">-Atin provided some fantastic insight into this subject. Through his work with University of Maryland's student innovation core '''T''''he Academy,' ''he learned a lot about what it means to cold-call on campus. He and his colleagues found the most success by putting their efforts into something very out of the ordinary, and allowing people to come to their own conclusions about the group and if they would be a good fit. They did this by dressing up as what they cleverly named 'White-board Walkers' (after the ruthless species the 'White Walkers' from the popular HBO series ''Game of Thrones'') </font>