The Woods

By Sherry Bube
Student Senate President

True leadership consists of contributing to worthwhile endeavors while enabling and empowering others to do the same. Each of us is called to leadership in its many forms. Be it from spearheading the fundraising committee in a club you are a member of to organizing an activity night for your dorm wing, leadership does not necessarily entail holding an office or being involved in everything. Instead, leadership requires collective collaboration with others, as well as humility to have others help you and to listen to and utilize their ideas.
On Jan. 21, Student Senate hosted a leadership summit entitled Leaders Under Construction. As the governing student body on campus, Senate firmly believes that not only is each one of us an integral part of the Woods community, but we also are important members in helping to lead and shape the world around us. Therefore, a leadership summit that could help hone and cultivate these skills was perceived as a need for the student body.
Because leadership entails many different aspects and at different levels, the summit was based on the idea of providing opportunities for developing and forming essential building blocks of leadership in an interactive way. Sessions ranged from how to run a meeting without stealing the show to what style of leadership one possesses.
Attendees were able to gain and improve necessary skills regardless of the level of leadership one possessed. Leaders from our own Woods community, along with the Terre Haute community, came together to provide this experience.
As a leader in her own field and community, Kimberly LaGrange, from Prime Resources, Inc. of Terre Haute, IN, was the keynote speaker. She shared with us ways to build that strong foundation in order to achieve excellence in leadership. In all, this summit focused on engaging and empowering students of the Woods.
Because leadership is not simply holding a position on a committee or an office, here are a few tips to get involved and become a leader:
Find a cause or group with which you are passionate or interested about or in
Utilize your talents and abilities in an invested role with that cause or in that group
Get others involved – who else is interested in that topic or cause? Think of ways to get them invested as well and how to utilize their abilities in conjunction with your own
Can’t find something? Start it! Find a current club or organization that shares a similar focus or begin something new!
Leadership is leading the way, being the way and showing the way. How are you being a leader today? And how will you be a leader in the future?

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By Emma Campbell
Editor-in-Chief

Welcome back to another semester and another issue of The Woods. I am personally very excited to be starting the semester refreshed after a long break. We here at the newspaper are in the process of continuing to improve our content and our connection with the SMWC community.
This semester means several things for the newspaper. Soon we will be selecting the best of our previous year’s content and submitting it to the Indiana Collegiate Press Association for consideration in their annual contest. Winners are invited to attend the ICPA conference, which includes guest speakers, lectures, and an awards luncheon.
Last year was the first in several where The Woods placed in three categories. This is a great honor considering we are in the same division as Rose Hulman Institute of Technology, Wabash College, and DePauw University.
This year we are looking forward to choosing from a wide variety of material to submit and are proud of the work our staff members have done. The staff members who went to the conference last year had a great time and we hope to part take in it again.
We are also welcoming two new members to the staff in this new semester. First we welcome Sierra Shepard who will be taking the position as Copy Editor for the Woods. Sierra is a junior and Professional Writing major. Her talent in writing and editing is a huge asset to the paper.
The second position being added is that of a staff writer…with a twist. Ali Mahloch, an Equine Business Management Major, is writing as an Equine Liaison, exclusively covering team events, shows, and other happenings at the barn and in the equine program.
The Equine Liaison position is something I created in an effort to reach out to parts of the campus that we haven’t covered as well as we would have liked in the past. We would like to expand and make similar connections with other areas of campus. If you are in a sport or program who would like to see more or better coverage of in the paper, please contact us so that we can plan how to change that.
Lastly, due to a great influx of suggestions and submission to our three columns, Le Fer Living, Commuter Corner, and our anonymous advice column “Miss Terious”, there is now an email account you can send your questions and comments to; columnsuggestions@gmail.com. You can also email us your letters to the editor and other comments to newsroom@smwc.edu.
We want to continue to hear from the campus community. Please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Once again, welcome back.

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