Goal 13 – Written Discourse GNED 400
This was by far my favorite experience here at Longwood Univerity. I was fortunate enough to be able to participate in the the LU@TAC program. It was in this program that I was able to journey to the Arctic Circle in Alaska and investigate the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline and its many implications.
This experience taught me to look beyond the surface. It’s so easy to get caught up in the motions and not notice the world around you, but this experience forced me to take a step away from that. I’ve learned that the things that can be found in everyday life such as bumper stickers, flyers, or even graffiti can teach you so much about the community you are in. But more importantly, I learned that you cannot really understand a culture if you do not commit to immersing yourself in it. That even means talking to the people who live there and hearing their stories because you would be surprised what you can learn from them.
This experience also gave me a whole new appreciation and love for the environment. If you ever want to go to a place where you can see untouched beauty, Alaska is the place to go. Although I have always considered myself an advocate for the environment, it was not until I saw the Brooks Mountain Range rising from the Alaskan plain making my Virginian mountains looking like mere hills, or seeing the look of freedom in a herd of musk ox as they roamed around the tundra, or even watching a fox put on a show for us as we watched from our car did I realize how important preserving these amazing sites are. These beautiful ecosystems cannot advocate for themselves and this experience put into perspective how important it is for us to do it for them. I do not want to wake up one day and find out that the few remaining places in the world where you can see the true beauty of the Earth have been bulldozed, so I hope that I will take my experience to this amazing destination and teach my future students a passion for the natural world and how to preserve it.
Although this journey was not always in my comfort zone, it was an experience that I will remember for the rest of my life. It is given me a new way to view the world, a revitalized passion, and introduced me to amazing people that will impact me for years to come.
I feel that it was in this experience that I truly learned what it means to be a citizen leader. At the end of this post, I have attached a blog post I created from this course in which I reflected on this very concept.
This Concept of Citizen Leadership
From the moment one steps onto the campus of Longwood University the concept of citizen leadership is one that is tossed around a lot. This is a campus that prides themselves on molding citizen leaders through the curriculum that is taught, the atmosphere the campus cultivates, and even the book that is read for Freshman Orientation. Although this is a concept that I have heard since day one I do not think I truly understood what it meant until I sat down and reflected on my past three years. What I discovered is that the definition of this term is more fluid than I originally thought. The definition changes based on who you ask so here was my big question to myself: What does being a citizen leader mean to me?
I do not think that it was one moment in which I grasped the meaning of this term, but rather a combination of moments that all lead up to an overall understanding. Each class I took, organization I joined, and experience that I had at this University all combined to give me a full picture. At face value, the General Education classes can be frustrating. As a college student, who has declared their major, all you want to do is jump into your major classes. These are the classes you typically enjoy because they are in a subject that you have a passion for; however, that does not always apply to the General Education classes. That being said, I argue these classes are much more than they appear to be and they teach you far more if you only let them.
Every history class that I have ever taken has been about memorization; dates, locations om a map, important people, you name it. If you could memorize it, you would do fine in the class or at least until I got to college. Once I hit college it was less about who could memorize the dates best and more about truly understanding the events of the past and how we can apply that knowledge to today’s society. Gone was the surface level thinking and instead it was replaced by intentional discussions that acknowledge all viewpoints. This class taught me that being a citizen leader means you take all sides of an issue into account before you rush to a viewpoint and that it is our duty to be educated about the past so we can better ourselves and our society as we move forward.
My ethics class was another place in which I learned a great deal about the concept of citizen leadership. I am not going to lie, going into ethics I was not looking forward to it. I am not the person that likes to debate things or defend my argument; however, I grew so much in this class. I was in the habit of believing in something without really understanding my reasons for that viewpoint. This class pushed me to ask that dreaded question of why; why did I support the things I did and not support others? I grew to understand that in order to make a decision one must be informed on all viewpoints. As a conclusion, I walked away from this class realizing that a major quality of a citizen leader is self-awareness; however, in order to be fully self-aware one must be educated in the topic fully.
These were just two of the classes that molded my viewpoint on what it means to be a citizen leader. After three years of classes and experience at this University, I realized to be a citizen leader means a variety of things. It means you are an active observer; no longer mindlessly walking through life, but rather actively participating with your surrounds. A citizen leader is self-aware; they know who they are and what they stand for. However, most importantly, I learned that a true citizen leader strives to make a positive impact in every environment that they encounter.
I do not believe that my journey in discovering what a citizen leader means is completed; however, I do believe that Longwood has pushed me and given me the groundwork to start my journey as a citizen leader. A portion of Longwood’s mission statement says, “Longwood University is an institution of higher learning dedicated to the development of citizen leaders who are prepared to make positive contributions to the common good of society.” I believe that through the direction of this institution I have started truly understanding what it means to be a citizen leader and it is my hope that I continue on this path.