Engineering to host daylong seminar on leadership

LAWRENCE — Engineering students at the University of Kansas have a chance to receive leadership training during a daylong seminar Jan. 27 at the Kansas Union.

The LeaderShape Catalyst seminar is expected to draw up to 110 students. It is being sponsored by the School of Engineering’s SELF Program, but the event is open to all engineering students, not just those in the Self fellowship.

Adam Smith, SELF Program senior coordinator, said the event is designed to help students — ranging from freshmen to graduate students — sharpen their goals and understand how they can provide leadership in their communities.

“This really aligns with the SELF Program’s main goal — to help students find their passions, to help them align their skills with what they want to do,” Smith said, adding that the program offers “skills and philosophies that can benefit them throughout their careers.”

LeaderShape, the company that stages the seminar, says the day is designed to help students take the “first step in the lifelong process of learning, exploration and action.”

“They will explore questions like: Who do I want to be? What is my story? Am I being the person I want to be? What are the causes and communities I care most about and how can I contribute?” the company says in materials describing the seminar. “This day may not provide participants the answers to these questions but rather create a community in which participants can engage in meaningful conversations with each other and start exploring these questions.”

Smith says the seminar is part of SELF Program’s renewed push to offer leadership training beyond Fellows in the program, to students at all levels in the School of Engineering.

“This is really extraordinarily high-quality information,” Smith said of Saturday’s seminar. “We’d like to hit brand-new students who don’t know where their leadership skills are; we’d also like to help upperclassmen who have had leadership roles and show how that this impacts them in their career search.”

The Catalyst seminar is scheduled for 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the KU Union. Students must register in advance.