Why Do UVA Students Become Leaders?

Colleges & Universities A-Z University of Virginia
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<p>I just read this interesting article about UVA and leadership. </p>

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Student self-governance is a reality here. Whenever possible, students are given the opportunity to direct things — student organizations, conferences, events. U.Va. students have much more authority than at most other schools. They run the Honor Committee, the Judiciary Committee, the Student Council and the Residential Life program. Many of these judicial responsibilities are held by professionals at other insitutions.</p>

<p>By supporting an environment that allows students to make their own choices — and their own mistakes — we try to help students figure out their own paths to reach their potential. We try to foster an interplay among the students, the resources they have available to them and the institution’s core values. In this way, students have multifaceted opportunities to incorporate the University’s values into their own personal value systems while they’re here and to take the values along with them when they leave.</p>

<p>Our system attracts and challenges students who are driven and smart. For example, the chair of the Honor Committee during the 2004-05 academic year was Meghan Sullivan, who last fall was named a 2005 Rhodes Scholar, along with fellow U.Va. student Justin Mutter. Because of the responsibility our students hold here, our alumni do well across the board. Some even have told us they had less responsibility on their first jobs than they had here as students. Many of our alumni go on to positions of leadership in their chosen fields — in business, law, medicine, politics, engineering, education, you name it. Other alumni, because of the value we place on public service and the opportunities provided through Madison House and other organizations, are selected by Teach for America or the Peace Corps upon graduation. This year marked the fifth year in a row that the University ranked first in the nation among mid-sized universities for the number of graduates going on to become Peace Corps volunteers.

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<p>The entire article:
<a href="http://www.virginia.edu/insideuva/students_lead.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.virginia.edu/insideuva/students_lead.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>