CHANGING THE WORLD: A student-run peer leadership program shows major community initiative. | By Karina Antenucci
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ne of the many unique qualities of Agnes Scott College students is their high level of participation in community service. Over the years, JLP Prince, director of community, civic and global engagement in the Gué Pardue Hudson Center for Leadership and Service, has seen this firsthand. They noticed that event attendance was always higher when students invited their own networks to participate, and then an idea sparked: What if the students themselves led service events? With the help of Brittney Scurry, a graduate student from the University of West Georgia, Prince developed the format and curriculum to bring the Impact Peer Leaders program to life in the 2017-2018 academic year. “To my knowledge, it is one of the only programs like it in the nation,” says Prince. “One of the biggest ways that it is different from other leadership programs is that it is truly focused on social issues and service to the broader metro Atlanta community. While all service programs are absolutely
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wonderful and several come out of my office, this one takes a student’s passion for a social issue and turns it into action.” The Impact Peer Leader program run and led by students, serves as one of the student-leader arms for the Center for Leadership and Service. “The program engages Agnes Scott students who are dedicated to community engagement and making a difference in the world,” Prince says. Participants, called Impact Peer Leaders, have the opportunity to gain experience in designing and implementing social justice programs and service experiences for their peers, each focusing on a social issue that is close to their hearts. To apply, students must have a 2.5 cumulative GPA and be in good academic status, have a demonstrated commitment to and interest in serving one or more social issues and submit an application. Last year, 20 students applied for the 12 available peer leader spots. Accepted students must commit to the program for one academic JLP Prince, Agnes Scott’s director of community, civic and global engagement, talks with Maja Hasic, human trafficking program director at Tapestri. Tapestri is one of the college’s Impact Peer Leader program’s local community partners.
year—with the option to continue on until graduation. The requirements include attending monthly service leader trainings, which cover everything from creating a program budget to advertising an event effectively, and planning and executing a minimum of six events over the course of the year. Two of the peer leaders serve as the director and assistant director of the Impact Peer Leaders program. The director is a senior who runs the program; the assistant director is a junior who shadows the director and will take the program reins the following year. “My directors meet one-on-one with each Impact Peer Leader every month to discuss how planning is going and help them think through their events,” explains Prince, who serves as an adviser and takes care of logistics like reserving spaces, managing the budget and applications as well as booking transportation. The peer leaders collectively focus on learning about and supporting a range of social issues. “I have a preset list that we need to cover. For example, someone is always focusing on hunger issues and the environment, but beyond that, it’s really up to the students what topic they choose,” says Prince, who helps the peer leaders find community partners that make sense for their chosen topic. Past and present Impact Peer Leaders have selected topics such as maternal health, accessibility for individuals with disabilities, historic
