Courtesy of Sara Binkhorst

This semester, Sara Binkhorst, Bowdoin’s director of student leadership development, will run an eight-week program titled iLead. Each week, a cohort of students will meet and work through a curriculum designed to develop leadership skills through interactive and experiential learning.

Last semester, Binkhorst organized two programs, one exclusively for first-year students focused on personal leadership and one for sophomores, juniors and seniors centered on peer leadership. Now, she is merging the objectives of those prior programs into one and has taken on two students to help co-lead.

Binkhorst joined Bowdoin’s Division of Student Affairs in the fall of 2023 and said she has received positive student feedback on the programs thus far.

“It’s been clear that there’s a lot that students are eager to learn and develop as leaders and to have a space dedicated to their development,” Binkhorst said.

Annie Galbraith ’25, who participated in the program in the fall and is co-leading this semester, said she believes the program encourages the idea that leadership is a skill set that can be practiced and built.

Binkhorst sees the goal of iLead in two parts: empowering students to see themselves as leaders and recognizing the influence that they have at the College and beyond.  Secondly, she hopes to help students practice leadership skills like building trust, managing conflict and giving and receiving feedback.

The program curriculum is divided into pairs of sessions focused on various topics. These sessions have covered self-awareness and leader identity, courageous decision-making and fear of failure, teamwork and collaboration, and  communication and feedback. It will end with the importance of commitment to others.

“The program is a space where students can discover their values and their unique leadership style and also practice giving and receiving feedback and working in small teams on a number of different simulated activities,” Binkhorst said. “A key takeaway of the leadership program is that it’s experiential. So it is not just me getting up there and talking about leadership; students get to practice and receive real-time feedback.”

Galbraith echoed the importance of the program’s active nature.

“It’s very interactive.… You get to do a lot of activities and try things out, and debrief them, debrief them as a group and get to know the people in the cohort well,” Galbraith said. “It’s easy to learn about leadership; but if you don’t practice it, it’s not going to stick with you.”

Galbraith also highlighted the program’s goal of making leadership approachable for students.

“It’s a cool opportunity, especially for students who don’t have a formal leadership role on campus, making leadership more inclusive, accessible and collaborative,” she said.

Even for students who do not participate in the program, Binkhorst noted there are many ways to hone their leadership skills on campus.

“There’s a number of ways to get involved in this office and to develop skills,” Binkhorst said. “You can take a leadership assessment and build some self-awareness of who you are as a leader and what is your unique strength and style as a leader, you can request a custom workshop for your team or the group that you lead and … have a workshop that is tailored to the things that you’re looking to develop, or you can come and chat and have some one on one coaching with me, or one of the student ambassadors at any time.”

Ultimately, Binkhorst said she believes that cultivating effective leadership in an accessible manner is crucial to the program’s mission.

“It is a critical time for leadership to be involved in the conversation on higher ed campuses, as we’re preparing students to go out and be leaders, not only during their time here but beyond Bowdoin as well,” Binkhorst said.