A team of six Brock students virtually participated in the international Collegiate Leadership Competition (CLC) on Saturday, April 10. The group met weekly and worked throughout Winter Term with Student Life and Success coaching staff member Kristen Smith to learn the CLC leadership curriculum and practise their leadership skills through a variety of experiential challenges. Although the team grew close over the term, geographically they were quite spread out, with members joining each week from Nigeria, United Arab Emirates and across the Niagara region. This was the first time the competition and full semester experience were offered entirely online. The international event saw Brock compete against 32 schools from across North America, finishing eighth overall. Earlier this week, the students, including Aishah Sonekan, Jessica Scott, Luca D’Amico, Krithika Chandrasekaran Iyer, Annilea Purser and Ashley Giroux, reconnected virtually to celebrate their success and reflect on their collective learning.

Political Science student Annilea Purser shares her experience:

“Over the winter semester, I have had the privilege of representing Brock University alongside 5 other students in the Collegiate Leadership Competition (CLC), an international leadership competition geared towards post-secondary students. Through weekly meetings, the team joined together to learn a series of leadership-related concepts as a part of the CLC curriculum. We then applied these concepts in real-world leadership simulation challenges, such as the IMPACT challenge which required the team to partner with a local non-profit organization to host a virtual event. The season ended off with the head-to-head competition day, where teams from around the world were challenged with two exercises (including a Mount Everest simulation and escape room), judging both our execution of the CLC curriculum and our ability to deliver results.

Being able to represent Brock on the CLC team was an incredible opportunity. I was not only able to learn alongside highly motivated students within the Brock community, but I gained invaluable leadership skills. In particular, the curriculum related to leading a team through stressful situations, including the importance of celebrating small wins, will be highly applicable to leadership roles that I take on in the future. The CLC is a growing case study for U.S-based research on student leadership, and I can’t wait to see the findings that they release on the impact as I have truly seen improvement in my leadership capabilities!”