1.
Describe very briefly why you chose this committee and what work you
did in this committee.
2.
One of the main objectives of this course is student leadership development.
A major arena for doing this is through work committees for our class
project. Look back at the leadership development exercise we did at
the beginning of this quarter and identify both your existing leadership
strength and the one new skill that you wanted to develop. In your committee
work, how were you able to use both your existing strength and to make
progress on developing one new leadership skill?
3.
New leadership qualities in people develop only in a nurturing environment.
How well did other members of your committee foster this type of environment?
Also, evaluate the role that you played in fostering this environment.
For example, at meetings were people conscious of both the existing
leadership strengths and areas of development for each member? What
role did you play in fostering this environment for others?
4.
Within your committee, which of your fellow students played an exemplary
role in helping others to develop their new leadership skills? What
specifically did they do to nurture leadership in others? What can you
learn from their style of work?
5.
In student organizations and for class group projects, many UCLA students
are influenced by “bad habits” that they have learned from
the dominant culture. Moreover, these bad habits are reinforced by the
prevailing institutional culture at UCLA and its emphasis on training
students as bureaucrats to perpetuate the prevailing social order. During
this quarter, members of our class have begun to develop greater consciousness
about the existing institutional culture at elite universities like
UCLA and to create an alternative student culture rooted in the struggle
for peace and justice in the world. Read the description of three common
bad habits that follow and discuss ways that your committee tried to
overcome them. The important word is “tried” — these
bad habits are so ingrained at UCLA that it will take concerted efforts
by politically conscious students such as yourselves over extended periods
of time to fully overcome them. Thus, discuss what your committee did
to “try” to overcome some of these bad habits over the past
ten weeks. One common bad habit is for students to counterpose getting
tasks done to having discussions to clarify political questions and
ideas connected with the work — it’s fairly common for even
experienced student leaders to see these as “either-or”
propositions: i.e., “we need to stop all work, so that we can
discuss important ideas”; or “we need to get things done
now, and although these ideas our important we don’t have the
time to discuss them now.” Another common bad habit is to see
committee meetings (and our class meetings) as the only times to have
discussions over important political ideas and committee tasks; students
easily forget about the importance of informal interactions outside
of class and committee meetings and the opportunities these time periods
present for discussing both committee tasks and political ideas; those
few who recognize the importance of these time periods describe them
as “bonding” time. Finally, another bad habit is for experienced
student leaders to take an “either-or” stand when they work
with less experienced student leaders: either they hold back and do
not contribute their valuable organizing talents in order to “let
the newer students develop their leadership skills,” or they take
charge and make decisions. Neither approach is effective, but experienced
student leaders often are at a loss at finding alternative approaches.
What are alternative approaches, and did your committee try these?