LSU’s newest organization Leading Streak launched its first event Saturday with a new take on student leadership development.
Dave Dessauer, Assistant Director of Campus Life and Leading Streak’s faculty advisor, said the new organization is different from other clubs at LSU.
“Many groups have a particular interest or a particular constituency that they serve and [that] they focus their programming or their efforts towards,” Dessauer said.
Dessauer said Leading Streak reaches out to every single student at LSU.
“This group will…make sure that regardless of the person, their background, their classification, they’re developing some knowledge or skills that are going to help them be successful as a leader,” Dessauer said.
Leading Streak came to life when Vik Singh, founder of the program, was appointed as chair of Leadership Resource Consultants, Singh said. He said LRC, an organization under Campus Life’s Leadership Department, needed to be rebuilt from the ground up.
“[LRC] was dying because it had really failed structurally and as far as its programming went,” Singh said. He said LRC held only one event every year, and “even though it was a big part of Campus Life’s leadership department, it wasn’t working.”
Singh said he met with Dessauer extensively over the summer to revamp the program.
“We came up with some fresh members,” Singh said, “And thought [the name Leadership Resource Consultants] was kind of bland and didn’t send the message we were trying to send, so we changed it to Leading Streak.”
Leading Streak’s mission-and challenge, according to Dessauer-is to provide leadership training and development specific to each person’s needs and abilities.
Since Leading Streak replaced Leadership Resource Consultants, little paperwork was required to get the organization up and running, Singh said. He said that almost no funding was needed to start the organization or to run its first event.
Leading Streak’s first event was a success, according to Matthew Darce, an active member of Leading Streak. Darce said 35 LSU students attended the event out of 60 that registered.
Darce said Leading Streak’s first event was an introduction into leadership development. Topics covered at the retreat included vision, passion and goals.
Singh said the event, Leap into Leadership, was a jumping off point for Leading Streak to gauge student interest in the organization.
“It went pretty good because I’ve been meeting with some of the participants and they’re saying, ‘How do I join leading streak? How do I get involved?'” Singh said.
Elaine Giles, Leading Streak member and a facilitator at Leap into Leadership, said the event stressed individual leadership development, with almost one facilitator for every participant.
Giles said Leading Streak members and Student Life faculty coordinated the event, but also participated in discussions and activities to reinforce their philosophy of peer-to-peer learning and development.
Darce and Singh both said Leading Streak will definitely hold more events in the future. And Singh said other LSU organizations are already taking notice of the new organization.
“We have other organizations that have contacted us to put on leadership events for their members, so that’s something we will be talking about,” Singh said.
 
Anne LaPlante
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To watch the video “Imagine Leadership” that was shown at Leading Streak’s first event, visit http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=imagine+leadership&aq=f
To learn more about Leading Streak or starting your own organization, visit Campus Life’s web site, http://www.lsu.edu/campuslife/
To learn how to get involved with Leading Streak, visit The Division of Student Life’s web site, http://appl003.lsu.edu/slas/slas.nsf/index