Elliot Steeves – Staff Writer
Gustavus alum Bruce Jackson is granting free usage of the online leadership courses called Charlie Academy for the 2022-23 school year. A group of faculty, staff, and students are involved in testing the modules for future use. Charlie Academy is a series of courses that teach leadership and life skills flexibly online.
On March 20th, the first-ever at-Gustavus program that introduced the class included a short program about what Charlie Academy is, as well as information from the Building Resilience module. The event was entirely centered around the Resilience module and was titled Mocktails and Conversations.
According to Junior McKenzie Alders, one of the students who brought the program to Gustavus, over 60 students attended the event. The most popular station was Letters of Gratitude, where over 30 students left postcards.
“Part of the module was recognizing who to lean on at hard times, and we wanted to make that an activity,” Alders said.
There was also a table concerning “circles of influence”, where students learned about how to deal with factors in their life out of their control. Junior Emma Schumaker, a student in charge of this table, worked with students to build skills around ways to deal with this where they may not have had that ability previously.
At the table, there were several conversation starters. Questions such as “Is a hot dog a sandwich?” were interspersed among heavier questions, like “What was the last conversation that inspired you?”, and “What is one ability you feel that you embody that demonstrates resilience?”
Schumaker loved the diversity of attendants that showed up to the event. “It looked like Gustavus. There were student senate kids, choir members, athletes, [and] Peer Assistants,” Schumaker said.
The event was a massive help to many students who felt that finding a community was a struggle. “Going into creating a conversational event around Charlie Academy, we wanted to create a space where people felt okay along with their peers. If students go into it with an open mind and a willingness to learn, it will have nothing but positive effects,” Schumaker said.
In addition to Jackson, Gustavus Adolphus partnered with the C. Charles Jackson Foundation and the group behind the Charlie Life and Leadership Academy to provide students with the complete course library. There are 21 different modules on Moodle available for use.
Charlie’s full course menu on Moodle features several online interactive activities designed to promote a specific aspect of leadership growth. “The Power of Visualisation”, “Architecting Goals”, and “Building Your Personal Philosophy” are just some of the available modules. The simple structure allows students to interact with readings that feature flashcards and true-or-false questions, then take a final assessment of multiple-choice questions.
The academy provides essential leadership knowledge and skills for success in today’s economy. It is a broad course in resilience and leadership training that offers students an edge in crucial leadership skills. It is also organized into three different categories: “Personal”, “Interpersonal”, and “Team”.
Students have the option of taking one or more of several individual courses, or an initial assessment to help them with discovering their best leadership path. It is currently on Moodle as an individual course that both students and faculty can enroll in.
The diversity of available courses approaches the broad theme of resilience from a variety of angles. “There is one that discusses negative self-talk, and [how it relates to] constantly setting yourself back. I would never have thought this relates to resilience as a topic,” Alders said.
The program is currently being piloted for co-curricular use in several different courses among the Nursing and Chemistry departments. The Student-Athlete Volunteer Educators used the program during the 2023 January term.
The program was partly brought in to fill a gap in how students learn about leadership and resiliency at Gustavus. There was a need for a tool to teach students how to be leaders, not just obtain leadership positions.
“Gustavus does the resume building, Charlie Academy teaches how to make it come to life. When you go into a job interview, Charlie Academy teaches you how to answer those questions,” Alders said.
“What Charlie Academy does is offer an infrastructure and a consistency where you can gather things, and [figure out] ‘Have I learned this or that quality’? There was not a spot on campus where there was a clear way to learn this,” BookMark Assistant Manager Erin Kuiper said.
Dr. Bruce Jackson, a graduate of the class of 1990 and the Executive Director of the Intentional Leadership Institute, created Charlie Academy. His career involves “the development of individuals, teams, organizations, and communities that seek to maximize influence, leadership, and change,” the Gustavus Website wrote.