Trainings for student groups | College of Biological Sciences

Leadership team workshops

Each training listed below is designed to be 60 minutes in length and specifically support student organizations and their leaders. Any session selected will be customized to the specific needs of your leadership/organization.

Crafting Grants for Change

Learn about the process of designing an effective grant proposal. This workshop will take you through tips and strategies to help you develop your ideas into feasible programming and navigate grant applications.

Transitions for Success

Successful leadership transitions within a student organization can help your group create structures to efficiently pass along critical information and continually grow and evolve from year-to-year. Through this training, leadership teams will determine what is necessary for their group to successfully transition leadership and be given resources to support them in creating documentation to support this process.

Visioning & Strategic Planning

Visioning and strategic planning is an important part of organizational leadership, but can sometimes be difficult. In this custom session, we will lead your team through a customized visioning process to meet your individual needs. Some activities done in this session may include a SWOT analysis, writing a mission statement for your organization, or creating annual goals.

Fostering Empowered Group Membership

When members of an organization feel like their presence and contributions matter to a group they will have a better experience, be more engaged, and take ownership over the success of the group. In this session, you will discuss strategies to empower other students and discuss as a team what this might look like within the specific context of your organization.

Leadership Compass

There is not one way to successfully lead an organization, but by understanding your own personal leadership style you can harness your strengths to be the most successful leader you can be within the context of your organization. Within this session we will examine each person's individual leadership style to help them understand how to harness their skills and most effectively work as a team and utilize each individual's leadership styles and strengths.

Engagement sessions

All engagement sessions are intended to be resources that can be presented to your membership as a whole. While each session comes with a pre-set 30-minute interactive lesson plan, they can be altered to meet the specific time slots and the context of your organization.

The Importance of Intercultural Communication in STEM

This workshop explores the critical role of intercultural communication in STEM fields. Learn more about how connecting across differences promotes collaboration, equity and inclusion, and effectiveness in the work you are currently and will be engaging in as a scientist.

Aligning Your Values

Join our workshop on the power of values alignment in the different areas of your life. You’ll identify and reflect on your personal values and explore how they can align with organizations you’re supporting and careers you’re pursuing as you’re integrating them into your decisions and the path you're building.

Building an Effective Team

Learn more about the steps you can take to build an effective team. This workshop will take you through helpful strategies to create a balanced team of individuals with various backgrounds, experiences, perspectives, and strengths.

Meaningful Community Engagement

Do you want to learn more about how to serve and engage with your communities in meaningful ways? In this workshop, we will walk you through the importance of creating authentic connections, identifying community needs, recognizing power dynamics and effective collaboration to social change.

Advocating for Yourself & Others

Explore essential skills to effectively advocate for themselves and others. Students will examine how they approach articulating needs, navigating difficult situations and empowering themselves and others to foster inclusive environments.

Engagement & Leadership Opportunities as a CBS Student

Do you want to learn more about the different leadership roles and opportunities to get involved within the college and university? This workshop will guide you through strategies to navigate the vast landscape and various systems in our institution in search of an organization/program that feels right for your journey.

Resiliency as a Scientist

Experiencing setbacks and failure are an inherent part of navigating life and finding answers to new scientific questions, but that doesn’t mean navigating it is always easy. This workshop will discuss the important role of setbacks in achieving the best possible outcome and provide tools and strategies (such as building self-compassion) that can be used to navigate setbacks in a variety of situations.

Understanding your Conflict Management Style

Everyone approaches conflict differently and various conflict styles are best equipped for different situations. In this session, members will be able to better understand the assets and challenges their natural conflict style may have. Additionally, we will discuss how students can practice utilizing conflict styles other than their own default style.

Career readiness sessions

These sessions led by the CBS career readiness team are designed to support your student organization's career readiness and development. Any session selected can be customized to the specific interests of your organization.

Resumes & Cover Letters (1 hr)

In this session participants will learn about writing effective resumes and cover letters for applications to jobs, internships, and other professional opportunities specific to your organization’s career interests. This can be designed for beginners writing their first resume and cover letters and those looking to refresh their documents.

Interview Preparation (1 hr)

Get interview-ready! This session will teach you how to prepare for an interview, review the types of questions you might be asked, and provide strategies for answering common questions. This session can be tailored to support interviewing for health professional school, jobs/internships, or graduate school.

Elevator Pitch Workshop (20-30 minutes)

At this session, we will break down what a strong elevator pitch entails, what to consider when crafting one, and lead an activity on practicing them with one another.

Personal Statements 101 (1 hr)

At this session, our team will walk you through the process for writing effective and impactful personal statements to use for applying to various graduate school and health professional school programs.

Finding Research Experiences (30-45 mins)

Finding and securing a research position can feel daunting, so let us help simplify the process! At this session, we’ll go over the types of research opportunities for undergraduates, strategies for reaching out to lab PIs and faculty, and resources for finding research opportunities on campus and beyond.

Building Connections and Using Linkedin and Handshake (30-45 mins)

Our team will guide you through the best practices for creating professional connections and building profiles on Handshake and/or LinkedIn that best showcase your skills and experiences. You’ll leave this workshop with more confidence on strategies for interacting with professionals and using these platforms.

How to Make the Most of Your Student Group Experience (20-30 min)

There are many ways to grow and develop new strengths as a member or leader of a student group. At this session, we will discuss strategies for connecting your student group experience to your career development and how to reflect on the experience in future job interviews and applications.

Questions? Email [email protected] or call 612-624-9717.