August 9, 2021
Farris, Heiman serve as facilitators for national student leadership institute
Submitted by Center for Student Involvement
Kelli Farris, executive director, and Sara Heiman, assistant director of leadership, both of the Center for Student Involvement, served as program chair and small group facilitator, respectively, for the Institute for Leadership Education and Development, or I-LEAD, at the end of July. The institute was held virtually this year due to COVID-19 for the first time in the program’s 25+ year history.
Heiman previously served as a small group facilitator for I-LEAD in 2019 when the program took place at the University of Vermont. In her role as a small group facilitator, Heiman facilitated discussions around social justice and identity topics with students from across the country. In 2020, Heiman served on the curriculum review team to improve facilitator selection, training, and preparation related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Farris has a number of years of experience with I-LEAD, having served as a small group facilitator for the 2013 and 2014 annual sessions, a co-lead facilitator for the 2015 annual session, as a co-lead facilitator for the 2017 Missouri State University session, and as a co-lead facilitator for the 2019 Sheridan College session. Farris was appointed to the program chair role in 2018 and again in 2020. In her role as program chair, Farris is responsible for the programmatic and educational aspects of the institute as well as the recruitment, selection and training of roughly 20 student affairs professionals serving as small group and co-lead facilitators.
The institute is the premier student leadership program hosted by the Association of College Unions International. It is designed to emphasize the core competencies of social justice, leadership, planning and community development. In addition to the annual sessions, the association offers a campus-based program called I-LEAD Connect that brings the program to a specific campus and provides a condensed version of its educational programming for its students.
In response to the growing social justice movement over the last few years, Farris led a team of university professionals from across the country to reimagine the program’s curriculum utilizing the social action, leadership and transformation, or SALT, model developed by the National Institute for Transformation and Equity and the National Center for Institutional Diversity at the University of Michigan.