Assessing Servant Leadership Development Among Student Employees Through a Challenge Course Apprenticeship

Abstract

In today's system of higher education, administrators are committed to developing students into leaders (Bush, 2009). One area for leadership development is during non-curricular programming that is typically offered by a university's Division of Student Affairs. A Division of Student Affairs, the administrative division which oversees campus recreation has the opportunity to work with students through sports, fitness, adventure trips, and challenge course facilitation. The current study examined servant leadership skills among students who engaged in one university's challenge course facilitator training program, which served as an apprenticeship. This training has an intentional focus on leadership development. A semi-structured interview was performed with each student (N=14) enrolled in the apprenticeship. Meetings were held at or near the completion of the apprenticeship, which allowed study participants to reflect on personal growth through the training program. Results illustrated that servant leadership development was perceived as a major outcome by the challenge course student facilitators after the students completed the apprenticeship. The student informants shared examples of how they planned to take what they had learned through the apprenticeship program and apply it to other parts of their lives. Implications for improving the challenge course facilitator training and for future research are discussed.