Zoey Tweh Capstone

Since the end of my freshman year my friends and I had been contemplating how to respond to our frustrations about some of the lack of celebration and education concerning African American students. By sophomore year we had agreed with some guidance from Mr.Kay, that a bsu could be a great addition to the sla community. The first step we took in creating bsu was creating a leadership team. Throughout the last three years my friends and I have worked tirelessly on this team to create a welcoming, productive, celebratory, and educational community within the sla community. My capstone was concerned with laying a strong foundation that will allow the black student union to stand on its own after the leadership team graduates. It began with evaluating and analyzing what the current leadership team has done successfully and where there was a need for improvement. After a lot of reflection and discussions with my team I began researching leadership and team building strategies. I then planned out my own strategy and timeline of steps needed to elect and prepare a new team. I began with having sessions open to anyone interested in being on the leadership team. In those sessions we walked through what leadership looks like for bsu and had each individual articulate what they can contribute. We then held the election, for the president and vice president. I then worked closely with those two to discuss the best way to create a team and discussed the structure of leadership. They then went through an interviewing process and we chose who would fill the other spots in leadership. We have been working since on planning next year’s calendar, goals, and team building. Through this process I’ve learned so much about how important community is and the fragility of creating a culture and trust within a community. I have found through bsu that providing a stage is often more rewarding than being on it. I am also learning how to embrace giving space for others to become the passion and creativity behind the curtain. "Design Matters from the Archive: Simon Sinek." Design Observer. Accessed January 25, 2019. https://designobserver.com/feature/design-matters-from-the-archive-simon-sinek/39904. This source provides information about leadership and team management. I selected this source because I had already heard about the guy being interviewed and I was very curious and interested in his approach on leadership specifically. I also needed to have more strategies on how I would be teaching the new leadership team about leadership as well strategies on how I would lead them. I found this source immensely useful on helping me understand now only these strategies but also rethink my approach. I was thinking about a plethora of pedagogies that I hadn’t considered previously. One limitation was there wasn’t much discussion on the issues of having to constantly change the leadership and voting. Henderson, Ivan. Personal Interview. October 23,2018. This source provides information about leadership and running a non profit that is devoted to young black people. I selected Ivan because I have worked with him in the passed and I know that he has a lot of exposure to what it means to be a leader in various positions as well what it takes to fundraise a cause that seems popular it has a lot of pushback. I found him very useful because he had a lot of wisdom around working with young people and how to keep them motivated and yourself healthy. He gave a lot of tips on self help and self care. The limitation was that he usually works with people who are being paid and I am working with people who are doing this for free. Monava Jones. Personal Interview. December 13,2018. The source knows a lot about website design since she does it for a living. I selected this source because she can give me some unique wisdom as well meaningful insight about how to create websites. This will be a detailed enough information session to help me think through step by step how best to showcase the information I want to advertise. I found this session extremely helpful in understanding what specifically I needed to do to make sure the process was thorough and how to go about it in the most efficient way. One limitation was she often does this for businesses so she had to go out on a limb for some of the advice she gave. "Philadelphia Has a History of Grappling with Teacher Segregation." The Notebook ICal. January 02, 2019. Accessed January 25, 2019. https://thenotebook.org/articles/2018/12/26/philadelphia-has-a-history-of-grappling-with-segregation-of-teachers/. This source provides information about the history of segregation with teachers in Philadelphia. I selected this source because I wanted a context for the current racism at schools in Philadelphia that the bsus that we are partnering with have to deal with. Part of the new mission is being a support for outside bsus in the city. It helps to get a context for the history of racism in the older schools that have had bsus for a long time. This source has helped me understand the history of black children being educated in PHiladelphia. This gives a lot of context for the background of the schools that we plan on partnering with who have a lot of need for a bsu. I have also understood the culture that is the foundation for the current cultures at a lot of predominantly white public schools within the city. The limitations of the source is simply the lack of details. It would be helpful to see how the schools individually reacted to this timeline. "Police Killings of Unarmed Black Americans Affect Mental Health of Black Community – PR News." – PR News. Accessed January 25, 2019. https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2018/june/police-killings-of-unarmed-black-americans-affect-mental-health-of-black-community. This source provides information about the statistics behind the African American community’s relationship with trauma and mental health.I selected this source because I am trying to understand how bsu can be supportive and helpful within the issue of black mental health. This source was helpful because I learned a lot about the amount of people dealing with the issue. I was learning about the sources and how often each trauma was occuring. This information helps me understand and gain more context around how to address the issues within the black community surrounding violence and traumatic events. One limitation was that they did not address any solutions. Robinson, Marc. "The Early History of the UW Black Student Union." Chicano Movement Geography. Accessed January 25, 2019. http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/BSU_beginnings.htm. This source provides information about the UNiversity of Washington’s black student union’s journey into being created and growth. I selected this source because I wanted to learn more about the overarching theme throughout the country in terms of what different schools need from their black student unions. I want to also understand how they handled the difficulties of creating their bsus and how they articulated overcoming them. I was curious about the leadership and how I can apply this to explaining to the incoming leadership team how we can improve. I found this source useful because I was able to apply some of the strategies used to my own journey and thinking about how best to articulate this to the new leadership team. One limitation was there was a lack of examples of how to do this in a high school setting so I had to be creative in applying the information to my own journey. Sinek, Simon. "How Great Leaders Inspire Action." Ted. Accessed January 25, 2019. https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action?language=en. This source provides information about how an organization/ group should build their foundation and the order in which they should present their product or their brand. I selected this source because I needed a better understanding of recreating a stronger foundation for the bsu and away I can articulate what we do to donors and the new leadership team. This source was helping me understand the discussion around branding and building up a group/organization. I learned a lot about how I can work with the current leadership team to have more effective sessions. It changed how I think we should plan event and activities. I have a lot of ideas on how we can approach events and ideas going forward. One limitation of this source was that it wasn’t focused specifically on how to do this with groups devoted to minorities and the difficulties surrounding that. Tamir Harper. Personal Interview. January 11,2018. Tamir has a lot of experience as a leader on many student lead boards, panels, and a non profit organization. I chose him because he has a unique experience with working with youth and focusing on issues with minorities within education. He was very helpful in explaining to me the practicalities of planning large events, leading leadership teams and how to stay organized. He talked to me about how to split up the work and delegate to make calendars that flow and the work efficient. One limitation was that he only has one perspective on this he isn’t often in the role of leader and it would be helpful to hear the other side and know what it’s like receiving direction. Teaching Teenagers." Cambridge Core. Accessed January 25, 2019. https://www.cambridge.org/us/cambridgeenglish/teacher-development/teaching-teenagers. This source provides information on materials teachers use for teach development. I selected this source because bsu often works with teachers and we try to tackle teaching certain topics to coincide with the information being taught in class. It would help to add more context to our approach with teaching students content by understanding a plethora of strategies that we can apply to our planning. I found this source useful because it gave me a lot of information on the many things that teachers have to prepare for and be aware of before and while teaching. I was learning about certain strategies with teaching teenagers specifically as well learned some new activities for teaching staff development. One limitation of this source was that it didn’t give thorough examples of classroom content that they were dealing with since we often talk about difficult content. "Why Philadelphia?" Omeka RSS. Accessed January 25, 2019. http://northerncity.library.temple.edu/exhibits/show/civil-rights-in-a-northern-cit/historical-perspective/why-philadelphia-. This source provides information about the history of the black movement in Philadelphia. I selected this source because bsu is interested in reteaching what activism in black history has actually looked like and discussing the complexity of each issue. I found this source useful because it gave me a lot of information on how the Philadelphia community has responded to different kinds of activism over the years. It also gave detailed accounts about different activists that most cites do not go into detail about. One limitation was that there was not much discussion on the actual work within each group and how they tackled an issue which is more towards the work we are interested in .