Students at West Texas A&M University have the opportunity to participate in leadership week. This year, the leadership week, presented by the Leadership Board, lasted from Monday, Sept. 20 to Thursday, Sept. 23. The board has faced certain setbacks due to COVID-19, making membership decline. Resuming in-person lectures gave the board an avenue to bring back Leadership Week.

The events for Monday included a leadership fair at the Jack B. Kelly (JBK) Commons, between noon and 1:15 p.m. Tuesday saw a talk from Laura Reyher with the College of Nursing and Health Sciences. There was free pizza for all attendees as well. The talk was held in the Alumni Banquet Hall. On Wednesday, the Leadership Board held an event dubbed, the “Student Leadership Relay”, (SLR).

“In terms of leadership week, I know that it’s usually advertised pretty well every year that we have it,” said Caleb Crum, a senior media communication major. “So, I would say that is the best part about it and whenever it comes out each year, it is just well known around campus, and we see plenty of advertisements for it.”

The purpose of the SLR was to increase students’ interest in passing on their leadership interests to others. This was done through interest meetings at the Senate Chamber of the JBK at 12:15 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. Thursday was earmarked with a movie night screening of “Onward” at 6:30 p.m. The movie was shown at the Alumni Banquet Hall.

“I think it is a really valuable resource, and I think it’s really good for WT to have those resources for students available,” said Mallory Grimm, a senior advertising and public relations major. “Especially those who haven’t been in leadership positions before, but they are wanting to get into those positions, I think that is a great resource for them.”

It is important that college students find the opportunity to have all the leadership tutoring available to them, since they get to find where they belong in the world. It is crucial in helping students create this niche because the leaders of tomorrow are those we see around today.

Hannah Scarborough is the Student Government vice president, and the Leadership Board president.

“With this being in the first couple of weeks within the first month of school, it is still a good time for students to be looking around for what they want to be involved in,” Scarborough said. “Because, if they haven’t found their group or their niche within the first three weeks, their retention rate for them is very low. We do lose students that are unable to find that friend or that organization so that’s what we are trying to do, is just to put all of them out there for the students because that is we want everyone here in WT- we want them involved.”