Next weekend, a group of students will attend the second annual Activate: Sophomore Leadership Conference.
Kim Pool, Director of VOCA, explained, “The goal of the Conference is to help students identify their strengths and unique design and gain an understanding of how their gifts can be used in God’s Kingdom work, both while at Houghton and after they graduate.”
One of the major ways through which the conference helps participants identify their gifts is by having them take Gallup’s CliftonStrengths, previously known as StrengthsFinder. The process asks participants to go through a series of statement pairs and identify more with one of two. According to Gallup, the test “measures your natural patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving.” From there, it assigns a combination of thirty-four strengths or “themes”. The service also includes reports that give some advice on how to best apply these themes and avoid the pitfalls often associated with them.
“I am hoping to gain and gather knowledge on how to be a better leader. I hope to learn more about myself and about my strengths so that I can better use them to be a more effective leader,” commented Ryan Burrichter ‘20, who will be attending the event. “Moreover, I hope to be able to meet and interact with other aspiring leaders who want to not only change the world but improve it for the better.”
Past participants appreciated the opportunity to interact with the speakers and new people from their class, especially about the content of the talks and what it meant to have the different strengths. They also remarked that the conference allowed them to test and apply their newly labeled strengths in a fun way that gave them a better understanding for how they could use them in the future.
Carolyn Case ‘19, who attended the first Activate conference last year, offered her reflections. “I learned how to work more effectively with people who are so different from me and I learned why we all work so differently. In a way, it helped me respect others more.” She also added that “having the conference in my sophomore year meant that I had been in college long enough to be comfortable in my own skin, but I also had the coming years to make use of what I’d learned.”
Students will travel to Asbury Camp and Retreat Center for the conference, which will take place from the 2nd to the 4th of February. “We intentionally hold the conference off campus to provide an environment free from daily campus distractions,” said Pool. “During the weekend, students will listen to talks, participate in a group project, and reflect on the results of the StrengthsFinder Assessment which they took prior to the weekend.”
This year’s keynote speaker, Dr. Scot McKnight, hails from Northern Seminary, where he serves as Chair of New Testament. According to his biography posted on their website, he is “a world-renowned speaker, writer, professor and equipper of the Church. He is a recognized authority on the historical Jesus, early Christianity, and the New Testament.” He maintains a leading Christian blog entitled “Jesus Creed” and is the author of over twenty-five books. His most recent publications include The King Jesus Gospel and The Blue Parakeet.