studentlinc

Pray For Haiti

There is no greater need for leadership than at a point of crisis.

Haiti has just experienced a horrific tragedy. A devastating earthquake has killed hundreds of thousands. They need more than leadership, they need our prayers and our help.

You can get involved immediately by donating to these organizations that are poised to offer assistance immediately: Red Cross, World Vision, World Relief, and Samaritan's Purse.

Photo Source: AP/Radio Tele Ginen

Best Wishes For 2009!

My this be a great year for you and all of your leadership endeavors. Your best year is still in front of you. Your best idea is yet to be discovered. Your best accomplishments haven't happened yet.

Happy New Year!

2009 is the year to SHINE!

Memorial Day - Do You Know What It Means?

The following is from the site www.usmemorialday.org. Here is a brief description of what this holiday was created for:

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation's service. There are many stories as to its actual beginnings, with over two dozen cities and towns laying claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day. There is also evidence that organized women's groups in the South were decorating graves before the end of the Civil War: a hymn published in 1867, "Kneel Where Our Loves are Sleeping" by Nella L. Sweet carried the dedication "To The Ladies of the South who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead" (Source: Duke University's Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920). While Waterloo N.Y. was officially declared the birthplace of Memorial Day by President Lyndon Johnson in May 1966, it's difficult to prove conclusively the origins of the day. It is more likely that it had many separate beginnings; each of those towns and every planned or spontaneous gathering of people to honor the war dead in the 1860's tapped into the general human need to honor our dead, each contributed honorably to the growing movement that culminated in Gen Logan giving his official proclamation in 1868. It is not important who was the very first, what is important is that Memorial Day was established. Memorial Day is not about division. It is about reconciliation; it is about coming together to honor those who gave their all.

Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states. The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I (when the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war). It is now celebrated in almost every State on the last Monday in May.

For more information, visit www.usmemorialday.org.

Picture Credit: A view looking up an incline at the cemetery. A flag was placed on each grave the Thursday before Memorial Day © 2001 Peter M. Noyes <petnoyes@bright.net>

Merry Christmas from Studentlinc

I truly believe that if we keep telling the Christmas story, singing the Christmas songs, and living the Christmas spirit, we can bring joy and happiness and peace to this world."                      

          ~ Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993), American Protestant religious leader, author.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night...or good day (depends on when you read this).

: : : :

Tim Milburn
Student Leadership Consultant & Speaker

 

BLOG ACTION DAY

Blog Action Day is Monday, October 15, 2007. It's a day that people are joining together to write about an important topic - the environment.

One of the biggest issues facing our world is the need for clean drinking water in many poverty-sticken countries. I know how easy it is for me to get a drink of water, to purchase bottled water, and to use an enormous amount of water everyday.

Check out this quote [which I first read on the Made To Stick blog]:

In San Francisco, the municipal water comes from inside Yosemite National Park. It’s so good the EPA doesn’t require San Francisco to filter it. If you bought and drank a bottle of Evian, you could refill that bottle once a day for 10 years, 5 months, and 21 days with San Francisco tap water before that water would cost $1.35.

The report went on to say that if we paid our water bills based on what we pay for bottled water, our bills would total over $9000 a month.

Does it seem that something is out of balance here?

The difficulty with embracing an environmental cause is that it appears so large and ominous people question whether they can actually do anything to make a difference.

The answer is YES...you can.

While I haven't completely sworn off bottled water, I have begun REFILLING my bottles with water from the tap. By doing this, I am saving money and using less resources.

Ultimately, the goal of any environmental cause is for individuals to create a smaller footprint on the earth. To use less, conserve more, and reuse more (ie, recycling). This way, there'll be more for those who actually need it.

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT: What is something you can use less of? How can you create a smaller footprint on the earth?

SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT: In what ways are you taking care of the environment? Share your efforts in the comments below.

: : : :

Tim Milburn
Student Leadership Consultant & Speaker
www.studentlinc.net

Reflective, Grateful, Indebted, and Happy Memorial Day

I just signed off on a comment on another blog and wished the writer a "Happy Memorial Day."

Using the word "happy" just didn't feel right.

It's kind of like wishing someone a Happy Good Friday or Happy 9/11.

If today (Memorial Day) is to be a HAPPY day, the happiness must come at the tail end of REFLECTION, GRATITUDE, and a sense of INDEBTEDNESS.

Reflection on the millions of lives given in the cause of freedom that I enjoy.
Gratitude for their service and sacrifice.
Indebtedness because they provided something for which I can never repay.

So I offer you this, encourage you to stop for a moment during your picnic or time on the lake and reflect, offer your gratitude, realize the blood that was spilled for your freedom...

...and live your life to the fullest.

I wish you a meaningful Memorial Day - full of happiness.

I like that better.

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT: What are you engaged in today that makes this Memorial Day meaningful?

SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT: Whom do you memorialize today?

: : : :

Tim Milburn
Student Leadership Trainer & Tool Maker
www.studentlinc.net

Martin Luther King, Jr

Today, I join millions in honoring one of the most influential people in the last century, Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you haven't heard or watched his famous speech, I Have A Dream, you can do so on YouTube by clicking here.

Then take a moment and consider what you are doing to bring his dream into a reality.

Fox News Offers College 101 - A Comprehensive Guide

With the first day of classes right around the corner, many websites are offering helpful advice to students, especially those preparing to go off to college.  One of those sites is sponsored by Fox News.

Visit Fox News College 101.

In a recent article that has implications for student leaders on campuses around the country, Fox News reports that political activism amongst college students has evolved.  There seems to be less and less rallies, signs, and vocal outcries in political protest and more hands-on involvement in community service activities.  Quoting from the article...

"College students are a catalyst for change in our society. They give up their time, they fundraise the money for these projects … I am extremely proud of all the students I see participating," Adaway said.

Several school administrators said that today's students are conscious of the geopolitical and domestic conflicts occurring around them. But rather than protesting or demonstrating, they are finding that their actions speaks as loudly as any chants could.

"I would say that 'inside the box activism' is on the rise. These students grew up in the shadow of 9/11, and that has impacted how they might react to world events. Now that they're becoming adults, they might have friends who are going off to war, so they're seeing things on a much different level. There's much more of a personal reason for them to get involved," Sapp said.

To read the article in its entirety, go here.

Student leaders are identifying ways in which they can get personally involved (and get others personally involved) in making a difference in the world.  Rather than crying out for change, they are following the advice of Gandhi who said, "Be the change you want to see in the world."

Student Leaders Respond To Katrina

Today, our student leaders are heading out to WalMart and Dollar Stores with over $3000 in hand.  They are going to buy items to make approximately 250 care packages (hygiene kits and basic need items) for the refugees and victims of Hurricane Katrina.

I call them student leaders, even though many of them don't have a title or position of leadership on our campus.  They simply stepped up to respond to a need.  They are taking the time to be a positive influence in a difficult situation.  They are encouraging others to get involved.

Some of our student leaders are:

• Organizing others to go and visit the elderly from Louisiana and Mississippi who have been moved into elderly care facilities close by us.
• In conversation with sister institutions about how we can assist their efforts of rebuilding.
• Planning trips to go down to the affected areas during school breaks and assist in any way they can.
• Educating other students about the degree of the devastation (sometimes students on a university campus can be unaware of what's going on for a number of reasons).
• Raising money and creating care packages to send to the victims.
• Gathering students together to pray for those affected by this situation.

Student leaders find their way to the front in the midst of difficult circumstances.  One of the great lessons of the Hurricane Katrina disaster will be the vacuum of leadership that was evident in the days following the destruction.  People were yelling, "Who's in charge?"  Unfortunately, those that carried some level of authority kept pointing at others saying, "They are."

Leaders show up when the situations demand it.  That's why I'm so proud of what our student leaders are doing.  They may not have a plan or a fine-tuned system, but they're getting it done.  I like what Poet Theodore Roethke says, "I learn by going where I have to go."

Great needs require great leadership.  Is it time for you to stand up?
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Additional Note: I just put a link up on my sidebar for people to go and donate to the Red Cross for Hurricane Katrina Relief efforts.

Adapting To The Rate Of Change

I've noticed that those of us who consistently write in the blogging community tend to be early adopters when it comes to technology and ideas.  I wrote a quick little post awhile back about the revolutionary speed by which computer memory is getting bigger, smaller, and faster.

Well, I've just been "WOW'ed!" again by a couple of paragraphs from Leonard Sweet's book, Summoned to Lead.  He helped me realize that my own thinking was too small, too slow.  He writes:

To store a gigabyte's worth of data 20 years ago required a refrigerator-sized machine weighing 500 pounds.  Today that same gigabye of data lives on a disc smaller than a quarter.  The speed, capacity, and performance of technologies have exploded.  They have increased by six orders of magnitude over the past 30 years.  That's 10 times 10...six times.

Forget megabytes, gigabytes, and nanoseconds.  Instead think "yotta bytes" and "yocto seconds."  In ten years we will be measuring memory capacity in terms of "yotta bytes" -- 10 to the 24th power, or a million-trillion megabytes of information.  And we will be measuring processor clock speeds in terms of "yocto seconds" -- 10 to the minus-24th power.

Consider the GNR revolution (genetic engineering, nanotechnology, robotics).  We are building machines today that we measured in nanometers.  A nanometer is to an inch what an inch is to 400 miles. (p122)

He goes on to quote Futurist Alvin Toffler who says, "The illiterate of the 21st century will no be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."

The lesson I pull from this is that in this day and age of rapid change, I must be willing to forget the things that no longer work, in order to make room for those things that do.