We were asked in class yesterday what we got out of it--what have we learned so far? What will we take with us? I recently blogged about being an officer for Hillel and having to select the rest of the board. What I learned in PLA helped me to do that. Here's how.     Our lectures this semester have covered a wide range of topics, from national security to intellectual property to corporate responsibility. Not only have we discussed various topics, but we've talked about the many components that comprise one topic from the people involved to the multitude of causes and effects of an issue. The completeness with which we discussed each topic showed me, when evaluating the interviews of my peers, the wide scope through which I needed to judge them. 

Before interviewing candidates, we sat down and figured out what we were looking for--what characteristics and qualities did we want our board to have? We each contributed one aspect, and came up with the conclusion that we were looking for motivated individuals with creative ideas who would help to further our mission as an organization. 

With that goal in mind, we established what questions we were going to ask. How were we going to find out if a student was motivated or creative or mission driven? Our questions were not direct with the hopes that their answers would shed light on the areas we were most interested in. For example, the question, what Disney character would you be? has nothing to do with Hillel, but it shows a person's creativity, ability to think on their feet, characteristics they value in themselves that they see in a cartoon character etc. 

Taking notes during the interview allowed us to have a short five minute discussion of each candidate right after their interview. Not only were we looking at the answers they gave, but also the manner in which they conducted the interview. How was their energy? Were they professional? Were they prepared? There were many aspects to our decision making process and from the many aspects we had a well rounded evaluation of each candidate allowing us to make a decision about a person who fully encompassed the goals we had initially made.

Establishing criteria, evaluating in terms of that criteria, finding creative ways to understand an issue and looking at an issue from all sides are all ideas that I have learned and practiced in PLA that I can apply to my leadership role in another organization. Thank you for this amazing opportunity for I have learned so many things already and we are only just beginning!

The question all semester has been what will we be studying next semester. WIth all of our talk about Marcellus Shale and energy responsibility and with our visit to Pittsburgh where we heard from Terry Pegula about his energy work, I thought our topic would be the future of energy at Penn State. The project would entail research into the various possibilities, interviews with students and staff about the feasibility and the environmental-ness of a project like this. We would present our proposals at the end of the semester, complete with pros, cons, ways to implement and a work up of everything involved to make our proposal work. It would be a lot of work on our parts, but we would be able to see the results of our efforts rather quickly. 
So, when Dean Brady proposed the idea of changing fan behavior at sports games, I was shocked. It was the last topic I would have picked. Not only would we have to come up with a solution for this problem, we have to first identify what the cause of this problem is. The questions I kept asking myself during class were, what can we possibly do to fix this problem? Why are fans going to listen to us? How are we going to make them change their behavior? With these questions being unanswered, it made the topic seem that much more daunting. 

I am one of those people who does not like to do a project for the sake of doing a project. I like to have a purpose, to have end result or a long term goal to look towards. With a project like this, it seems unlikely that anything would come of our proposals--so why bother? The same questions were asked during last years class when they tackled high-risk college drinking. Why do we need to bother? Because it is a problem on our campus and we need to do whatever we can to fix it. We may take small steps at first, but those first steps are the ones that get us and the rest of the student body to take larger, more effective steps. 

The same is true of THON. We do all of this work all year long to raise money for pediatric cancer research and the Four Diamonds Fund. Many people are involved because they know someone with cancer, many are involved because it's the thing to do in the spring. But we all work for the kids. It is their future, their health and safety that we are working towards curing. We can see those numbers go up at the end of the 46 hours, but the connection between what those numbers do for those kids is kind of lost, at least for me. I have to constantly remind myself that standing out at a street corner in the freezing cold raising dollar after dollar is all going towards the treatment and care of those children. We may not be able to see the physical results of our work (except in the numbers), but we know that we are making a difference in the lives of those children. Just like we would be making a difference in the culture of Penn State if we changed how fans behaved towards visiting fans. As long as we are reminded of the long term goal while we are working, this project, to tackle fan behavior is definitely worth it.