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Leadership Development
As stated in Mater Ecclesiae’s Mission Statement, “…the program pursues an ‘integral formation’ that maintains quality intellectual, spiritual and social standards; forms character; and emphasizes service.”
The four areas of Mater Ecclesiae’s integral formation are intellectual formation, spiritual formation, character formation and social formation. This formation covers all aspects of the human person and challenges students to reach their full potential. (Refer to the Mission Statement.)
To foster the integral formation of all students, Mater Ecclesiae College provides a substantial co-curricular program and a wide-variety of extra-curricular activities and student services in order to assist students in achieving academic and personal growth, to enhance the learning process and to provide opportunities for developing each student’s personal potential as a contributing member of society.
Student services are designed to identify and meet student needs by promoting an environment that is conducive to the integral development of the student.
Students are highly encouraged to take responsibility for their own formation by making the most of all the opportunities the College offers, particularly the one-on-one guidance available to them upon request in each of the four areas of formation, as well as by participating actively in student life and setting and pursuing challenging personal goals.
Student Leadership Opportunities
The mission of Mater Ecclesiae College is to prepare consecrated women for leadership positions ineducational, pastoral, religious and social institutions. Consecrated women are called to be leaders through their conviction and personal witness of the faith and their ability to transmit the Gospel message. Students need to learn to be responsible and authentic, to have strong will power, to be organized and to be distinguished in their dress and manner. Leadership involves all facets of life: spiritual, moral, intellectual, social, and human.
Each person follows a unique path in their leadership development, and Mater Ecclesiae College prides itself on the personal guidance given each student to reach this goal. Some tools available for all students to develop leadership qualities include the following:
- Personal character dialogue, which may be requested twice a month or more, if needed, from the Dean of Students
- Responsibilities on campus that help students develop essential leadership qualities such as a vision of the whole, personal commitment, and responsibility
- Fieldwork experience
Through personal orientation from their Dean of Students and their academic adviser, each student can discern which activities will help to develop her potential and help her grow in her capacity to lead others. Students also have the opportunity to help in the recruitment office by offering presentations to prospective students. The possibilities are endless, and with the personal help of her Dean of Students, each student can make the most of the many opportunities to develop her personal leadership.
Student Government/Senate
Due to the fact that Mater Ecclesiae College student body is made up of consecrated women, student government exists according to the specific nature of the consecrated vocation, specifically via channels through which each student is invited to participate in and provide direct input into campus life.
The institution has various structures and channels of student representation through which students voice their satisfaction, concern and suggestions, and help implement initiatives and changes in college life.
Class Leaders
The class leader is the spokeswoman of her class.
- Student comments, questions, group concerns regarding classes, methods
of instruction, assignments, etc., are brought to the attention of the dean of academic affairs, teachers, etc., by the class leaders. - Class leaders communicate frequently with the chief administrative officers, and teachers to ensure that the student voice is being heard.
- As with all structures at Mater Ecclesiae College, although there are class leaders, students are free to approach the Dean of Academic Affairs or any CAO directly at any time.
Teams
Students are divided into smaller teams led by a student team leader and a team secretary. This is one means of student representation and participation.
- The team leader guides the teams in the activities, and formally represents the team before the staff, chief administrative officers, etc.
- The team secretary helps the team leader in the tasks the team leader delegates to her and functions as team leader when she is absent.
- All members of the team have a specific role and responsibility through which they form leadership and have the opportunity to represent the student body.
- Formal team meetings twice weekly or more to evaluate their progress in team resolutions and projects, and to generate new initiatives to propose to the relevant campus authorities.
- Gospel reflection, sharing and discussion
- Opportunities to bring up difficulties or points requiring improvement on campus
- Analysis of life situations and pastoral case scenarios
- Initiatives and projects such as participating in parish-level door-to-door evangelizing missions, giving conferences at youth retreats and helping out with campus upkeep projects.
- Regular meetings: team leaders follow up with the president each month to address needs that have arisen, to give observations, and to follow-up on previous suggestions; they transmit the results of this meeting to the rest of the student body at team meetings, where goals/solutions are accordingly established for the coming month.
- Team leaders participate in institutional planning and assessment for different areas pertaining to them.
- The team leaders and secretaries are free to request meetings with the president, deans of students, vice director of student affairs, etc., to cover specific topics of benefit to the student body. Points of discussion at such meetings have included the following items.
- Dining services – how to better and more efficiently meet the needs of the student body
- Long term projects that each team wants to carry out for the benefit of the institution
- How to take advantage of fieldwork opportunities as a means to form lifelong management skills, interpersonal relationships and responsibility
- Discussion and application of the mission of the institution.