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CMU announces the 2020 Leadership Scholarship winners
2020 Leadership Scholarship recipients: (clockwise from top-left): Elizabeth Connelly, Hillary Jorgensen, Katrina Lengsavath, and Danika Warkentin
Elizabeth Connelly, Hillary Jorgensen, Katrina Lengsavath, and Danika Warkentin are the recipients of this year's endowments: $3,500 annually up to four years, to a maximum value of $14,000 each.
CMU takes great pride in announcing the four winners of this year's Leadership Scholarships: Elizabeth Connelly of St. Bruno, SK (homeschooled); Hillary Jorgensen of Morris, MB (Morris School, K-12); Katrina Lengsavath of Winnipeg, MB (Gordon Bell High School); and Danika Warkentin of Pincher Creek, AB (St. Michael's Catholic School, K-12) are the winners of up to $14,000 each.
CMU's Leadership Scholarships are awarded annually to recent high school graduates who, in addition to meeting CMU's entrance requirements, demonstrate significant leadership ability, academic excellence, personal character, commitment to service, and vision.
These scholarships are competitive, and applicants are required to provide a detailed resumé of their leadership involvement, along with two letters of recommendation, and an essay reflecting on what leadership means to them. Many students choose to write about other leaders who have inspired them. This year, students brought a wealth of perspectives to bear on the question, promising a new generation of servant leaders with truly global mindsets—leaders who are also listeners.
For Elizabeth Connelly, the words of Hindu faith leader J. Donald Walters (Swami Kriyananda) have provided a guiding principal along which to develop her understanding of leadership through service, or 'leading from behind': "Leadership is an opportunity to serve. It is not a trumpet call to self-importance." Whether one's leadership is expressed through a formal position, or informally through the simple influences of character and example, Connelly writes that "leaders must know their role is both a gift and a burden," remaining humbly attentive to their own strengths and weaknesses in order to lead to the best of their ability.
Connelly says her goals as a leader fall precisely in line with CMU's own mission to "inspire and equip women and men for lives of service, leadership, and reconciliation in church and society." Consequently, she looks forward to studying at CMU as a place where she can "grown in communicating with others, where I can learn to be flexible with other cultures and beliefs, and serve within the community."
Hillary Jorgensen chose to write about the three fundamental qualities she believes a person must cultivate in order to lead effectively: integrity, passion, and positivity. Reflecting on past experiences from her own life where she was called or appointed to lead others—such as in sport on her Volleyball team, and in citizenship on Student Council—Jorgensen concludes that, for all aspiring leaders, finding the team within which you can best achieve your goals is both a necessity, and a major challenge.
As an aspiring teacher, Jurgensen wants to be someone whom others can trust and look up to. She looks to her three pillars, and to the development opportunities of study and citizenship at CMU, to help her become that person:
"An educator is a role model with the responsibility of leading and teaching a group of students...taking into account not just their academic interests, but also encouraging them to join groups or pursue interests/activities that they enjoy and help sculpt them into the people they are meant to become. [To do this,] teachers need to lead their classrooms with integrity, compassion, and positivity."
Katrina Lengsavath, who also won third place in this year's High School Essay contest for her reflection "Something for Your Mind" on the relationship between entertainment and escapism, believes that leadership—like art—is a delicate and mutable practise, requiring sensitivity and practise to perform well:
"I believe that resourcefulness, technical ability, and logistical management skills are crucial elements in a successful leader. Beyond that, acting with kindness, social awareness, and commitment to improvement are pillars of behaviour every leader should possess or strive to refine."
In her own life, Lengsavath strives to cultivate these skills and commitments as a way of "building skills to face fear of the unknown," and by extension, increasing empathy—an effort she regards as indispensable among those who seek to be leaders:
"Growing up in a culturally and socio-economically diverse, inner-city community has allowed me to deepen my compassion for others and build an understanding of life stories that are different from my own. [...] I am committed to exploring concepts that are beyond me and my worldview. [...] I believe CMU will play a role in my leadership journey because being immersed in an environment that is open and accepting of diverse religious beliefs, cultures, and worldviews will push me to communicate with and learn from diverse groups of people."
Danika Warkentin's essay begins with a recollection of her life-long desire for control—that most relatable of personality foibles—and her eventual realization that "there is a significant difference between 'being in control' and being a leader."
As the child of missionary parents, Warkentin spent several formative years living in Burkina Faso. As a result, she was steeped from an early time in discussions of a great local leader, the erstwhile President Thomas Sankara (elected 1983, assassinated 1987), "one of the most revolutionary presidents the country had ever had." Inspired but what she learned, Warkentin now strives to emulate the leadership qualities she seeks in Sankara's life and career: authenticity, humility (while in office, Sankara refused to have his picture displayed in public buildings), selflessness, voluntary vulnerability and service.
Warkentin writes, "As I develop as a leader, I hope to demonstrate selflessness, so that I can have others' best interests in mind. I have seen how much more people respect me when I dispose of my superiority and listen to what they have to say." She says she looks forward, through studies at CMU, to stepping out of her comfort zone and cultivating relationships with students and faculty from "all different walks of life."
Congratulations to all four winners.
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