By Kelline Linton, Staff Writer
Senior servant leaders were scheduled to be honored Friday with a Chapel ceremony and snack-filled reception.
The Volunteer and Service-Learning Center recognized graduating seniors who were nominated by staff, faculty and other seniors as exemplary leaders dedicated to service and selfless giving.
The VSLC sent an e-mail in March to all seniors that asked them to nominate peers who embodied the role and characteristics of a servant leader. Administrators also gave staff and faculty the same link to the nomination Web page, which included a list of May graduates based on the Registrar’s current records. No limit was placed on the number of nominees an individual could submit, but each nomination had to include specific examples of servant-leadership; therefore, instructions were provided that helped define a servant leader.
Both e-mails stated that servant-leadership went beyond the traditional volunteering.
“There are all types of servant leaders out there,” said Rita Harrell, administrative coordinator of the VSLC. “It’s more than volunteering; servant leadership is a lifestyle.”
The VSLC used the Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership’s definition to describe a servant leader. Greenleaf, the man who founded this Center, also coined the phrase “servant-leader” and launched the modern servant leadership movement. His Center depicts a servant leader as one “who chooses to serve first, and then leads as a way of expanding service to individuals and institutions,” according to the Greenleaf Center’s Web site. “[Servantleadership] encourages collaboration, trust, foresight, listening and the ethical use of power and empowerment.”
Out of more than 520 May graduates, seniors, faculty and staff submitted 85 nominations to the VSLC. These nominations were approved by the Office of Judicial Affairs and a three person review committee headed by Nancy Coburn, director of the VSLC. Although these two bodies approved all the nominations this year, as many as seven names have been cut from the servant-leadership nomination list in the past through this review process.
The VSLC planned to honor these approved nominees at the Servant-Leadership Chapel, which was to begin Friday at 11 a.m. in Chapel on the Hill and immediately was to be followed by a reception in the upper Rotunda.
The Chapel’s key speaker was to be Dr. John Willis, professor of Old Testament and associate editor of Old Testament abstracts. Two student honorees also were to speak as part of the student responses.
“I’m always encouraged by our student responders as they share their hearts and goals on how they intend to incorporate their serving spirit in their lifestyles,” Harrell said.
Jeffrey Edwards, one of the student speakers, planned to discuss how he hoped to model servant leadership in his future endeavors.
“Servant leadership includes leading vocally and leading by example, but it also includes leading while learning. It is an ongoing process that is never finished,” said Edwards, senior biology major from Bedford. “I didn’t think my speech [would] inspire or entertain many people, but I did hope that people [would] realize how great ACU can be as a training ground for life and leadership skills.”
Although the servant leader recognition ceremony is a biannual event and honors fall and spring graduates, more students usually are nominated for the spring ceremony, and more than 100 students have been nominated at one time. Students may be recognized as servant leaders through just one nomination, but seniors sometimes receive several recommendations.
“Some students are much more visible on campus, much more involved. But there are also those very quiet servants who do a lot and are involved with servant leadership among their peers, but they don’t receive the very obvious accolades,” Harrell said.
