Application Process begins for the Sloop Institute for Excellence In Leadership

The Sloop Institute for Excellence in Leadership is a two day workshop in which students from Frostburg State University get a chance to put their leadership skills to the test, and participate in a two day workshop filled with exciting and challenging experiences. The workshop will be held Friday, March 6 of 2015 at the Turf Valley Resort and Spa in Ellicott City. Forty student leaders will be chosen to represent Frostburg, in the sophomore and junior level.

The hope of this experience is that students will return to campus with a confidence to become better leaders in their communities, classes, and of course organizations. As an added bonus, students who attend the retreat receive a commemorative medallion, which they can save for graduation, and wear proudly as a member of the Sloop community.

Clarissa Lang, administrative assistant for Leadership and Exponential learning here at Frostburg State spoke proudly of the Sloop Institute.  Lang states “The students get down there on a Friday evening,  and we do a really nice dinner that night, with alumni, foundation board members, President Gibraltar, all the vice presidents on campus….It is a networking time. We make up little business cards that they can give out to alumni, because you never know if one day one of these people might be your boss, or land you an internship, so we really encourage them to network their first night there. After the dinner is over, we do about an hour session of icebreakers, sort of a get to know everyone, as a way to get comfortable and relaxed with the fellow sloop participants. Saturday morning is broken up into a couple different sections. The first thing that they do is foundation tables,  and just a chance for students and alumni to talk about different leadership topics, to ask questions to alumni who are out in the field for a long time, or even alumni to see where students are nowadays, so that they can incorporate their business to new incoming career-seekers.”

Douglas Baer, director of Leadership and Exponential Learning credits Sloops success mainly to its founder, Dr. Sloop. He states “Dr. Sloop was a teacher on campus for many years and he was in charge of TKE (Tau Kappa Epsilon). From then on, he taught his students about what life and leadership is, and more. 35 years later, a golf tournament was put together in his name, making enough money to put together the first sloop event. The first “Sloop” happened in 2001, and in 2004 he created the artwork for the medallion.  With this medallion, you can wear it at graduation, so it’s a big deal.”

Kelly Bean, alumni of Frostburg State had this to say about her experience with the Sloop Institute “I helped to plan the event for two years and attended it for one. It was one of the best experiences I could have during my college years because you meet so many diverse FSU alumni who want nothing more than to help you become successful and you realize how important networking really is and you can fine tune those skills during that one weekend.”

For more information on the Sloop Institute and to apply, please visit http://www.frostburg.edu/clife/leadership/.