Photo courtesy of Maria Stickrath.
Lucy Welles
liw002@marietta.edu
A few short weeks ago, the U.S. Naval Academy Leadership Conference took place in Annapolis, Md., and two delegates from Marietta College’s own McDonough Leadership Center were in attendance. The conference occurred from Sunday, Jan. 25 to Thursday, Jan. 28, 2015, and drew over 200 participants from military institutions, colleges and universities across the country. According to the Naval Academy’s website, the leadership conference has been held annually since 1984, and Marietta College has been fortunate enough to be invited to attend for the past four years.
The two delegates, who were hand-selected by Perruci from a pool of applicants, were Maria Stickrath, a sophomore political science major with a minor in leadership studies, and Emily Drabeck, a sophomore organizational communication major with minors in leadership studies and gender studies. Both women are active within the McDonough Center, having served as leaders for the EXCEL freshman orientation program and elsewhere on campus.
The two plan to apply the concepts they have learned at the conference to their leadership pursuits here on the Marietta College campus.
Dr. Gama Perruci, dean of the McDonough Center, expressed his gratitude for this opportunity.
“It happened right when my daughter was getting ready to attend the Naval Academy as a student,” he said. “I learned about the conference, and the chair of the department of leadership at the academy then invited Marietta to send delegates.”
Each year, the conference has a particular theme. This year’s was “Leading in an Interconnected World.” According to the Naval Academy’s website, this particular conference investigated the challenges of being authentic “in a world where advancing technology both facilitates and hinders the leader and follower relationship.”
The concept of authentic leadership is one that has been discussed at length within the curriculum of the McDonough center.
“They have been exposed to those concepts in our classes, but the conference gives them a chance to expand that knowledge, and also get a chance to hear from other speakers about the topic,” Perruci said.
Drabeck is particularly passionate about the topic of authentic leadership, a fairly new theory grounded in self-awareness and relational transparency, and said the conference’s theme is what drew her to apply to attend in the first place.
“I thought it would be a great opportunity to further my reach and networks within the leadership field,” she said. “And it was. They really emphasized at the conference that leadership is not about you; it’s about your people. You should focus your leadership on building relationships, less on logistics. I need to reach out to those around me.”
Strickrath said the conference taught her how to maintain authentic relationships as a leader despite the growth of technology and globalization.
“Even though people use technology, people still really value face-to-face contact,” Strickrath said. “You can’t be afraid to knock on the door, so to speak, and make an honest effort to build a closer relationship.”
Perruci is proud of his students, and hopes they will make good on the lessons they have learned.
“They have deepened their knowledge,” he said. “They have heard about these concepts and theories from textbooks, but now they have had a chance to hear from people who are living these concepts. This makes them more real, and it gives them a chance to take those ideas and bring them back to campus and share them with others.”
PICTURED L to R: Emily Drabeck, Lan Tran and Zack Perez of the UCLA ROTC, and Maria Stickrath.
