Today is the last day for students to register for Ball State's Excellence in Leadership program.
The Excellence in Leadership program is a two-year emerging leader program available for any Ball State student. It strives to help prepare students to be leaders on campus, in the community and once they leave the university.
EIL members meet 2 hours a week to learn about various techniques for improving leadership skills. There is a new presenter for each meeting.
"It's different ever week," Mitch Isaacs, associate director of Student Life, said. "Sometimes [the presenter] is Ball State faculty and staff, sometimes it's professional trainers or personalities. In two weeks, we've got the chaplain from the Colts coming, then the week after that we've got an improv comedy team that's going to be talking about body language, so it's a new experience each week."
EIL has been at Ball State for almost 15 years. Throughout those years, the program has constantly been evolving, and because of this, it has become a very successful program, Isaacs said.
Students who join EIL often go on to become resident assistants, orientation leaders, student government members and scholarship recipients.
Recently, Ball State students are taking notice of all of the opportunities the program offers.
"Over the last three years, the program has doubled in size, and we've also been able to raise the profile of our keynote speakers," Isaacs said.
Speakers for EIL have included Edward James Olmos, Jesse Jackson, Howard Dean, Meghan McCain, and Karl Rove. Program members were even seen on national television in 2009 when Bill Rancic, entrepreneur and star of reality show "Giuliana and Bill" visited to talk.
David Axelrod, senior advisor to President Obama is scheduled to present this year.
Overall, the speakers, opportunities and skills learned by EIL seem to be working, Isaacs said.
"All you have to is go out and look at the number of students we have that are going on and doing other things on campus, or going on and doing things once they leave Ball State," he said.
To register, go to cms.bsu.edu/About/AdministrativeOffices/EIL/Register.aspx and complete the registration. For students who are not sure how the program works, an EIL graduate student will be there to help them get started. Meetings are on Monday from 7 to 9 p.m. in Cardinal Hall.
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