Leadership Champlain

Calendar/Projects & Attendance Policy

Below is the Seminar Day schedule for the Leadership Champlain Class of 2009:

September 11 & 12, 2008: Opening Retreat
October 16, 2008: Human Services
November 13, 2008: Criminal Justice
December 9, 2008: Government & Politics
January 13, 2009: Community Leadership
February 10, 2009: Energy, the Economy & the Environment
March 10, 2009: Communications & the Media
April 14, 2009: Health Care
May 12, 2009: Civic Engagement
June 9, 2009: Project Presentations, Closing Event and Dinner

Participants in the Leadership Champlain program are expected to attend all monthly seminars. For emergency purposes, one absence is allowed per participant if notified in advance by contacting the Executive Director.

Missing any or all of a monthly seminar will constitute an absence from that seminar.

The second seminar that a participant misses will constitute a dismissal from the program for the participant unless special dispensation is granted by the Board for this case. Makeup work for special dispensations will be at the discretion of the Board.The Board reserves all rights to determine graduation designation. The project component of Leadership Champlain will be divided into two semesters within the September-June timeframe. The first semester’s project will be academic, focusing on leadership skills. The second semester’s project will be community oriented on behalf of a local non-profit organization similar past projects but much more concise due to the shortened timeframe. Class members will work with two different groups during each semester so as to get a better chance to work closely with more of their classmates.

During the first semester (September-December), the class will be divided into groups, randomly determined by staff. The objective of the first semester team is to educate the class on prominent leadership models through team processes.

The mechanics will be as follows: At the end of the two-day retreat, the teams will be identified and each team will be assigned a local leader who they will be interviewing later in the fall. The interview will be based on the theory from a book on Leadership that had been assigned previously and have read within the first month of the program. The team will then need to meet to discuss the book sometime in mid-October and to develop an interview around the book’s theory for their assigned local leader. The local leaders will be pre-selected by Board members and will have already agreed to be interviewed for this process

The interviews must happen by November 30. The teams will then create a short presentation for the benefit of the rest of the class to be presented at the January Community Leadership seminar. These presentations will serve to educate the rest of the class on the model that they studied and how it is being applied (or not) by a local community leader.

During the second semester (January-June), the class will be divided into different groups, randomly pre-determined by staff to work on a community project. The groups will choose their project from a list of one’s submitted by area non-profit organizations at the January session. Community Project work will begin in January and will conclude with presentations in June. Community Project teams will be assigned an alumni liaison who will be available to them as an observer to help them work through any issues they face as they begin and continue their community project work.