For freshman pre-nursing major Kerrick Gerst, stepping into a leadership program seemed natural due to her previous leadership opportunities in high school, such as Student Council and other philanthropy groups.

Gerst said she heard about Emerging Leaders from a friend who recommended it to her because of her personality. She said she is also involved in Student Government Association, Alpha Sigma Tau and helped with Riley Dance Marathon.

“I’m excited, and I’m very happy for the opportunity,” Gerst said. “I know a couple of the people who are in it, and I feel like it’s really going to be a great group. This is just an awesome opportunity to hone in on the leadership skills that I have, and other people have, and just make USI even better than what it is.”

Emerging Leaders is a rejuvenated freshman leadership organization.

Emerging Leaders introduces freshmen to campus leadership opportunities and allows them to meet other student leaders. It also provides students with the opportunity to network with campus staff and faculty, as well as with workshop leaders from the community and campus, said Amanda Story, Student Development assistant director.

“They just have to be a freshman and, basically, just be interested in getting involved on campus and learning about leadership,” Story said.

The freshman applicant filled out the online application through OrgSync, and the students found out after individual interviews whether or not they made it into the program, Story said.

Some of the benefits of being involved in Emerging Leaders include the development of personal and professional skills, opportunities for social activities and recognition at the annual O’Daniel Leadership Programs Student Leadership Awards, according to the Emerging Leaders information packet.

Emerging Leaders entails weekly meetings and workshops throughout members’ freshman year, Story said.

“Our vision for the future of the program is that students who … participated as an emerging leader would go on to kind of mentor the next group of emerging leaders,” Story said. “We won’t have that this year because this is the first group.”

Emerging Leaders used to be an LLC (Living Learning Community), but it was disbanded, Story said.

“My understanding is that there were some challenges in having the Emerging Leaders program as an LLC because it did require those students to live on campus,” Story said. “In order to open up the opportunity to more students who were either unable to live on campus or may not have wanted to be in an LLC, doing it as a program that just meets throughout the semester, more in a workshop setting, would give more students the opportunity to participate.”

Story said when she became the new assistant director of student development, she took over coordination of Emerging Leaders.

Freshman management major Alexa Bueltel joined Emerging Leaders because she was really active in high school and wanted to be just as active in college. Bueltel said she is shy when she first gets into new situations, and she would like to learn how to adjust to new situations through Emerging Leaders.

Bueltel said she is glad to be a part of the first Emerging Leader group after it was restarted.

“By being a part of Emerging Leaders, I’m getting to know more freshmen who are interested in the same things I’m interested in, and … staying involved in campus life,” Bueltel said.

Bueltel said she is involved in Student Government Association and is applying to be an AMIGO.

Freshman political science major Christopher Fowler said he learned most of his leadership skills when he was in the ROTC at his high school. Fowler said he is looking forward to helping others learn how to “unlock” their leadership skills and develop his own skills more through Emerging Leaders.

“I really, really love to see programs like this expand throughout the years because I think it would be a great program for everyone who wants to try a new thing out,” Fowler said.