Leadership Academy Provides Valuable Summer Experience

The summer of 2020 was like no other. But being a leader means stepping up in the tough times.

That's one of many valuable messages UNC student-athletes learn by participating in the Richard A. Baddour Carolina Leadership Academy, a trailblazing program that continues to innovate in student-athlete leadership training.

As Tar Heels step up to lead their teammates and classmates, the Leadership Academy also stepped up, providing a valuable experience as COVID-19 cancelled summer plans for many UNC student-athletes.

"We watched the ways the pandemic was impacting our student-athletes, and saw many of them losing summer experiences they had been planning around," said Shelley Johnson, the Leadership Academy's Executive Director. "We wanted to come up with something to fill that void and turn what was a really weird and stressful summer for everyone into something valuable."

Thus was born the Leadership Summer Intensive (LSI), which ran from May 1 to July 31 and offered participants the opportunity to customize a summer experience. Programing fell into 10 "buckets," or areas of exploration. To earn the LSI certification, participants earned a minimum of 30 credits by completing tasks that fell within the various buckets. Within that framework, participants were able to tackle projects they found most beneficial and relevant for them, their teams, and the upcoming seasons.

All programing was remote, with projects the Tar Heels could tackle from wherever they were. More than 70 UNC student-athletes participated in at least one of the activities, with a total of 26 ultimately earning the certification.

One who completed the program was Emerson Porter, a senior business administration major who had planned on a summer internship in finance in her hometown of Charlotte.

"Despite my internship being cancelled, I was able to spent my time this summer building leadership skills," said Porter, a member of the Carolina track & field team who competes in pole vault. "I am so grateful for the opportunity to participate in the inaugural Leadership Summer Intensive course through the Carolina Leadership Academy. The course allowed me to learn more about my leadership style, interview professional pole vaulter Katie Nageotte, building a mentoring program for the UNC track & field team and so much more. A huge thank you to Shelley Johnson for coordinating everything virtually and creating such a diverse leadership curriculum."

Among other projects, student-athletes devised ways to welcome incoming team members while also allowing for social distancing, planned team-building activities and came up with ways to connect with alums.

Another "bucket" invited participants to create an "Odyssey Plan," mapping out a future path for themselves, with timelines and goals. Participants also read books on leadership, viewed leadership-related TED Talks and listened to podcasts on leadership.

"Like many things over the past six months, the LSI was born from an immediate need we saw," Johnson said. "We believe it did what we intended it to do by filling a void and providing value at a really hard time. Certainly we hope that next summer looks a lot more normal and our student-athletes once again have access to a wide range of internships and experiences. But we're exploring ways to further develop LSI into an additional summer option for them – we saw the ways that it helped to build leadership skills and self-awareness. We believe those qualities will help them thrive, in pandemic times and for the rest of their lives."

Players Mentioned

Emerson Porter

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