For the past few years I have been working towards the Boreas Leadership Certificate. Boreas, which is part of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, allows graduate, professional students, and post-doctoral fellow to work towards the certificate, which “offers students the opportunity to delve deeper into the challenging world of leadership and change making. By pursuing the Boreas leadership certificate, students build on the skills and networks developed in Boreas programming and practice leadership through a leadership project. Students completing the requirements receive a printed certificate, are recognized on the Boreas website, and may reference the accomplishment on their resume or CV. Like other Boreas programming, the certificate is offered at no cost” (http://environment.umn.edu/leadership/boreas/).
So I learned today that my certificate went through and that they even posted it to the website (how nice is that!) http://environment.umn.edu/leadership/boreas/certificate/
My Boreas certificate project was “Having Your Voice Heard”
Having your voice heard
It is becoming clear that in today’s society individuals need to be able to communicate and have their voices and opinions heard. Building upon Boreas workshops that I have attended, I decided to examine two ways that individuals are able to have their opinions heard: the more traditional newspaper opinion piece of the ‘Letter to the Editor’ and the new digital audio podcast. For the first part of my project, I sent ‘Letters to the Editor’ to three newspapers – two (national and local) traditional print newspapers and one local online newspaper. Then for the second part of my project, I contacted and met with two local podcasters to discuss how they get their views across in the podcast format. The expected outcome is to become more confident in expressing my opinions in the public arena and to learn about podcasting – a format that allows everyone to have a voice.
Part 1: I wrote three Letters to the Editor
1) Letter to the MinnPost: “In praise of the political podcast.” MinnPost.com (April 18). https://www.minnpost.com/letters/2017/04/praise-political-podcast
2) Letter to the Saint Paul Pioneer Press: “Close Unethical Schools.” Saint Paul Pioneer Press (April 19): 10A http://www.twincities.com/2017/04/19/letter-pedestrians-can-help-their-own-cause/
3) Letter to The New York Times – not published
Part 2: Talking to Two local Podcasters
-1) Stacy Verdick Case, the host of the podcast ‘The Not Boring Book Show’, which is also a MyTalk 107.1 podcast, http://www.podcastone.com/the-not-boring-book-show.
-2) Derek Kosky, the host of podcast ‘Off The Shelf’ https://www.mixcloud.com/derek-kosky/