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YLP Semester at a Glance

December 10, 2012

                        YLP Semester at a Glance

                                                                             

                                                           

To give an overview of this fall semester would require many pictures and even more words than can fit in a news update in this holiday season.  This has been the strongest YLP semester to date, beginning with the awesome addition of a curious and committed group of students to the program, the 2012-2013 cohort!  From pushing themselves in the climbing gym, to learning to facilitate discussions on challenging topics related to diversity, public land management, and leadership, these bright participants have already shown their unique, but powerful, willingness to take risks physically, mentally, and emotionally, giving trust to themselves as well as each other.  Next semester will be, at the very least, exciting as the 2012-2013 cohort further develop skills as powerful stewards of wilderness and proactive citizen leaders in our global society.

                                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                              

The second year cohort, now officially the Social Change Practicum (SCP), also began with a BANG!  The participants rekindled their comradery during a retreat in Yosemite National Park where they partook in a group service project, shared tales and experiences from their summer adventures, and engineered a vision for the coming year.  Sparked by this retreat and the excitement of stepping into the next stage of their YLP leadership development, participants volunteered in the local community and then co-created an introductory "Fun Theory" project.  Although the selected project to deter the campus community from spitting their gum on the ground had a few rough edges, the participants took both successes and failures as learning tools to improve their own capstone project development.  This SCP cohort aims to complete nine community impacting capstone legacy projects in the coming semester, which is FOUR times as many as any previous cohort year!  

                                                                                                      

                                                                                                                        

Both the first and second year cohorts are setting a strong pace for future YLP participants to follow.  The University is exceedingly happy with the success of these incredible individuals who make up the Yosemite Leadership Program.  Keep up the great work, YLP!

 

Jacob Croasdale 
Yosemite Leadership Coordinator
University of California, Merced
jcroasdale@ucmerced.edu