Inaugural Chevron Leadership Academy Class Sees Success

Leadership is among the key skills the LSU College of Engineering works to instill in its students before graduation, and the Chevron Center for Engineering Education has added a new program to ensure that goal is attainable.

The Chevron Leadership Academy, which began in January, is a semester-long program that aims to help select students maintain and strengthen their leadership skills through workshops, seminars and mentorship. Twenty students—who all had at least one year of coursework remaining in their college careers and who had a minimum of 60 credit hours—were selected by a committee to participate in the program’s first run.

By offering the program to students halfway through their college careers, Director Warren Hull said it gives the Chevron Center “the opportunity to watch these students grow after the academy and also to have them come back to future classes to share their experiences.”

Last spring, the program offered workshops and seminars that covered a wide range of topics including: intergenerational communication, ethics, Meyers-Briggs personality tests, leadership theory and tools for success.

Overall, Hull said this semester’s program paid off for its participants—literally. “At the successful conclusion, they [wrote] a paper on what they learned about leadership, what they discovered about their own leadership qualities and what they plan to do to improve their leadership skills,” Hull said, and “they will receive a $1000 stipend for having participated.”

Rebecca Collins, a petroleum engineering senior who participated last spring semester, said the Chevron Leadership Academy was “a crash course in leadership with a bonus—networking experience.” She added that she enjoyed having a mentor who is a Chevron petroleum engineer and helped her with her resume and other professional decisions.

“Throughout these seminars, the speakers made sure to keep an open dialogue and encouraged questions, which is very important for growth,” Collins said, adding that her favorite part about the program was learning new lessons on leadership and meeting German foreign exchange students.

The Leadership Academy is just one of the resources available through the Chevron Center, which also offers free large-scale and 3D printing services for students, as well as studio equipment rentals. The Center, which is funded by a donation from the Chevron Corporation, also has services to help students navigate and successfully complete the Communication Across the Curriculum program, and to assist students map out their study abroad options.

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To learn more about The Chevron Center for Engineering Education, visit https://www.lsu.edu/eng/chevron/index.php. For more information, please contact communications assistant M.B. Humphrey at 225-578-5660 or marissah@lsu.edu.