Creative Leadership
Creative Campus's Creative Leadership department exists to equip students with creativity within the framework of leadership development. The Creative Leadership director works with 25-35 students each year in the context of the Freshmen Forum. As the graduate assistant in charge of Creative Leadership for 2007-2008 and 2008-2009, Jason Doblin has developed a system to teach students how to be creative leaders without making it seem like a class. He begins with activities to help students develop relationships that allow them to work effectively as a team. From there Doblin works to impart factual knowledge by sharing information and then giving students a case study of individuals or organizations that exemplify certain characteristics. For example, after discussing with students the necessity for innovation in business, the group studied Nike as a company that encourages innovation from all of its employees (from management to custodial staff) on a daily basis. Finally, Doblin has developed hands-on projects that help students develop the skills that will enable them to apply what they have learned in the real world. One project the students did was to build a moving vehicle out of Legos. Doblin asked each team to select a set of Lego pieces. Then, he told each group to move over one spot, leaving their Legos behind. The students were forced to adapt their plans to use pieces another group had selected, developing flexibility that he said creative leaders will need in the real world.
Doblin's students also became involved in projects outside of their normal weekly meeting time. In addition to assisting the Creative Campus organization with its projects and events, Doblin's group joined with other Freshman Forum students to co-host Mix It Up in November 2007, which encouraged students to sit with people they normally would not during lunchtime at the Ferguson Center. During the Spring Semester, Creative Leadership students offered support to FirstConnection - a group of University students who want to make a positive contribution to the Tuscaloosa community - in hosting a field day for students at Martin Luther King Jr. elementary school. Doblin said the project proved that he had done his job of imparting leadership skills upon his students. Betsy Stewart forged the partnership with FirstConnection and lead the Freshman Forum group in its task of providing refreshments for field day participants and volunteers. Doblin said he was most impressed with how Stewart creatively handled problems that arose. Stewart said that being a part of Freshman Forum Creative Campus taught her a whole new way to approach problems and situations. "I got to learn new ways of completing every day tasks in creative ways," she said. "I learned about artists and engineers who are creating things I never knew were possible."
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