After a month of classes, SPALeaders from every year gathered in Hughes Formal Lounge for a Leadership Dinner – or “Linner” hosted by the Events Committee. After indulging in student-created pasta, older students in the program shared their advice on how to successfully transition to college.

As sophomores, juniors, and seniors stood to speak about their freshman year experiences, many of them told the youngest SPALeaders to absorb everything happening around them, to allow their minds to be changed and expanded, and to take full advantage of the Leadership program – the class, the social justice projects, and the people. After the advice from older students was shared formally, freshmen continued to ask questions to the older SPALeaders back at their tables.

At each table were students from every grade, and many sat with their “Buddies.” Two weeks earlier, the Buddy program had carefully paired each first-year student with an older student in the program to help guide the new student through their college experience. This Linner was a unique opportunity for students in all four grades to interact with one another.

Sara Aucker, senior and Teaching Assistant to the sophomore Leadership Class of 2014, told freshmen to view every experience as an opportunity, to use their time in college to learn about themselves, and to think about others who do not have the chance to be at American University or to be in the Leadership program. 

Freshman Marc Lewis says, “The event was valuable because it allowed me to see how older members of Leadership dealt with their freshman year experiences, and I now know that I can go to them for advice.”

This dinner, as the first Leadership event of the year, allowed SPALeaders to share with each other and to learn from one another, and was extremely worthwhile for the entering Class of 2015.