By Frances Hesselbein
Forty-six global students, eleven mentors, Academy board members and University of Pittsburgh and Leader to Leader staff members gathered in Pittsburgh for the second annual Hesselbein Global Academy for Student Leadership and Civic Engagement Summit. As a whole, the Summit represented a generation of University students for whom, "To serve is to live" is not a foreign language.
The Summit participants brought commitment, passion, engagement and inspiration, and this energy was sustained throughout the week without one down moment.
An early ancestor of mine, John Adams, second President of the United States had a son, John Quincy Adams, who wrote almost 200 years ago, "If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more and become more, you are a leader." The entire weekend was a circular learning experience and all were inspired.
In our closing ceremony, students and mentors shared the personal attributes of their mentees and peers. Certain words were echoed over and over: respectful, unstoppable, capable, insightful, courageous, influential, focused, visionary, original, passionate, caring, disciplined, honest, inclusive, challenging, powerful, committed.
The significance of the Global Academy depends on what each student will do when they return home, in their University and their community. Will they choose to "Be Happy Now" as Marshall Goldsmith suggested in his keynote address? Will they serve as a “splendid torch"? as George Bernard Shaw wrote, and whose quote is dear to my heart:
"I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. Life is no 'brief candle' for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a short moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations."
Indeed, we look forward to the success and inspiration the forty-six global students of the 2010 Global Academy will bring, changing our world for the better.