The Forum
The EASL Forum is weekly, interdisciplinary forum focused on service, community building, and leadership development. The Forum consists of 15 students who learn and serve together over the course of 22 weeks from September to April. The shared journey focuses on four areas: integrity, personal growth, bridge building, and community engagement. As a participant in the Forum, students will gain the following skills in each category:
Integrity
Clarity about the type of person you ought to become allows for personal development and leads to congruent decision-making and positive and active citizenship
Students will cultivate integrity by:
- Gaining a deep understanding of integrity and servant leadership
- Developing a model for personal ethical development leading to ongoing ethical practice
Personal Growth
Being an effective servant leader requires individual development for positive collective change.
Students will experience growth by:
- Enhancing their ethical practice
- Identifying their leadership style
- Developing community within the forum through group learning and projects
Bridge Building
An awareness of others and their distinctive experiences that cultivates solidarity and inspires action.
Students will develop bridge-building skills by:
- Identifying, sharing, and reflecting on personal experiences, bias, and stereotypes
- Discussing potential responses to future situations where bias, stereotypes, and injustices are present
Community Engagement
Leaders engage with their community and aim for change and long-term success and effectiveness.
Students will engage with community by:
- Examining the needs of a greater community
- Identifying an expressed need
- Building an informed action plan for a project to address that need, with long-term goals for success and sustainability
- Implementing the project
- Evaluating results and consequences
Overview of the Forum
The Forum meets weekly for two-hour meetings, in collaborative sessions that address pressing social issues. Forum Scholars will present on their projects at our closing Celebration Banquet at the end of Spring semester.
The Forum:
- Runs throughout the academic year from September to April.
- Meets weekly in collaborative 90 minute sessions that address pressing social issues, leadership development, and community engagement.
- Delivers a service project. In the spring semester Forum Scholars will put into action the concepts they developed during the year, working in small groups to plan and deliver a project to enhance the Emory or local community. This project will be hands-on and will address a need or problem on campus and will result in a tangible, sustainable solution. Forum Scholars will present on their projects at our closing celebration at the end of Spring semester.
Why Participate?
More than ever, our society needs responsible young leaders not only to revitalize and transform existing institutions, organizations and ways of thinking, but to create new ones as well. Servant Leadership, a leadership model for the new millennium, "emphasizes increased service to others and a holistic approach to work, promoting a sense of community and sharing of power in decision-making." The EASL Forum focuses on developing such leaders among its members.
I attribute much of my professional evolution to the EASL Forum. The common link between all of these experiences is the application of ethics to improve systems and the people they serve.
All current, full-time Emory University (including Oxford College) students are eligible. Emory undergraduate, graduate, and professional students are invited to apply.
To apply for for the 2024-25 academic year go to:
Applications are due Monday, September 16, 2024 by 5:00 pm ET.