Workshops, Events & Honoring Leadership

The Wurtele Center for Leadership (WCL) offers a range of workshops, speaker events and other co-curricular experiences that offer students an opportunity to grow their own capacity to lead collaboratively and equitably, and gain inspiration from collaborative leaders in a variety of fields. WCL programming explores the contours of our Collaborative Leadership Model, creating space for students to reflect on and build their own practice (ME), learn effective ways of engaging in and leading a team (WE), and apply their knowledge to work toward positive change (IMPACT).

Stay Connected

The Wurtele Center is piloting two new initiatives this year where students have the opportunity to share their experiences and build connections.

Weekly Coffee Chats

Every Thursday starting September 18 from 10:30–11:30 a.m., Campus Center Café.
Curious about what it means to be a leader–or not sold on the whole “leadership” thing? Maybe you’re navigating a sticky situation in your group, looking for thought partners to help bring an idea to life, or want to tap into the resources the Wurtele Center offers. Whatever brings you in, we’re here to chat–and the coffee’s on us!

Wurtele Wednesdays

Every Wednesday starting September 24 from 4:30–5:30 p.m., McCartney Hall
Wurtele Wednesdays are a weekly drop-in event where students can come together with our staff and student interns to have fun and connect. Want to try out some low stakes public performance? Join us for karaoke! Want to meet some new people and connect in a chill way? Join us for game night! Every Wurtele Wednesday brings something new, and we hope it brings you too!

Customized Workshops, Trainings, & Retreats

The Wurtele Center offers a variety of ways to support both student leaders and their groups. We work in collaboration with students to design a workshop, training or retreat that best supports the needs of your group. The Wurtele team also strives to empower students to do peer-to-peer facilitation through either having some of our student staff facilitate or supporting students to facilitate their own groups through help with brainstorming, creating a plan and thinking through how best to execute it.

Some Examples

  • Teambuilding
  • Setting group norms and culture building
  • Intentional meeting design
  • Effective communication for collaboration
  • How to navigate conflict
  • How to facilitate retreats
  • Maintaining momentum/motivation
  • Transitioning leadership

Collaborative Innovation Speaker Series

Organized each Spring as part of the Collaborative Innovation Concentration gateway course, the Collaborative Innovation Speaker Series invites creative changemakers to Smith to share their stories and practical tools for shaping the future we want to live in. Email Megan Lyster  for more information about the series, and subscribe to the Wurtele Center newsletter for announcements of upcoming events.

Honoring Leadership & Impact

In collaboration with a diverse team of staff and students, the Wurtele Center has developed two new rituals for Smith, one for the fall semester and one in spring, that will serve as opportunities for our community to celebrate the leadership contributions and impact of students and other members of the campus community. More details on both of these new rituals will be forthcoming as the year unfolds.

Fall 2025

Impact Bears

Late in the fall semester, we will install life-size bear statues as an homage to our new moniker, the Smith Bears, in several public indoor locations across campus. The bears will be covered with a pinnable surface, and passersby will be invited to pin tributes to community members or collaborative efforts that have had a positive impact on campus.

Spring 2026

Twenty Toasts

In the spring, we will launch a new celebratory event honoring student leaders who have had a significant impact throughout the year. The Wurtele Center will issue a call for nominations for student leaders, from which twenty honorees will be selected to attend a celebratory dinner at which toasts will be read to highlight the contributions of each student leader present.

Integrative Learning & Leadership Events

Amplify Program

Each fall, the Wurtele Center for Leadership offers workshops and events as part of the Amplify Program that encourage students to develop a public voice as a form of powerful leadership.

Fall 2025: Alie Ward