Six Salem High School students had an opportunity recently to attend the Align Southern Indiana (ASI) Youth Summit at Indiana University Southeast. This was the 5th year for the event, which brought together approximately 60 juniors and seniors from the region to work together to build leadership skills.
SHS Career Coach Karen Barry said this year’s focus was on the importance of collaborative leadership.
“ULead, an amazing youth leadership development organization from Goshen, IN provides the programming, which they call Leaderjam,” she said.
Juniors Delana Nolan and Payslea Chastain said it was a great experience and they hope they can go back next year.
“It was fun and we met a lot of new people,” said Nolan.
Joining them were seniors Karley Hawn and Jenna Hollen and juniors Landon Irwin and Carson Albertson.
The students broke into small groups for the day and participated in several team building activities. They also sat through a seminar about student loans and credit scores.
“We had a lot of fun and learned a lot, too,” said Chastain.
Some of the skills the girls said they learned included communication skills, teamwork and attention to detail.
Barry said students throughout the five county region (Washington, Scott, Harrison, Clark & Floyd) are invited to attend. The students are identified and invited by the counseling department. The event is limited to 60 spots.
“Some of the benefits include learning what collaborative leadership means and why it matters, engagement with students throughout the region and every student who attends receives a $500.00 scholarship from IUS,” said Barry. “Plus they get to spend the day on IUS campus, and they have lots of fun. The Chipotle lunch was a pretty big hit!”