This has been a week filled with questions, answers, confusion, and steps forward. Coming to the end of the semester is a great point of reflection for our class as we look at how far we’ve come and how much work and potential we still have in our future. On Monday, the class took some time to look back on the semester. We did this through constructing personal and class resumes. Additionally, we created personal and class mission statements and goals. By writing this individually and then coming together and pooling our ideas, we plan to brainstorm and make a cohesive and descriptive sum total of our progression. From guest speakers, planning, organizing, bonding, researching, discussing, imagining, and creating, we dove right in this semester. We also spent sometime this week reflecting on potential organizations that match important causes in Namibia. As a class, child-headed households and sustainable agriculture are issues that were mentioned multiple times. As we discuss more potential organizations and causes, we are coming closer to a clearer vision of what our project will become.

We are finding that understanding one another is a large part of working together as an effective and successful team. As part of our homework for the next week, our class is assigned to get lunch, coffee or just hang out with someone we get to know better. Hopefully with a better understanding of where people are coming from we will be able to identify strengths and move forward gracefully. I think it’s safe to say that we all look forward to a time when we can easily identify our own skills as well as one another’s. We understand that this level of understanding comes with time; afterall, Picasso did not paint the Mona Lisa in one day!

On Wednesday we had the special privilege of engaging and discussing with Steve Mencarini. A visitor from Elon’s LEAD center, we discussed what it means to be a leader and the different types of leading. By stating hypotheticals and discussing how we felt about them, our class learned a lot. Most importantly, we learned how different everyone’s definition of leadership is. That points us to questions like: How does this affect our class? What is my definition of leadership? What kind of leader do I want to be? Mr. Mencarini did an excellent job of pushing our minds in the right direction as we start to grapple with leadership and what it means to us in the context of the Periclean classroom. At the end of the session he looked at Carol and said: “I think I broke them into a million pieces”. Carol responded and said “No, I think they are thinking and their wheels are still turning”. This interaction is almost representative of our stage in our Periclean experience. Our wheels are turning and turning and we’re so ready for the next semester to get the wagon moving!

Cayley Gosnell & Samantha Lubliner

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Hello again everyone!

I’m Sam Lubliner and I’m so excited to be in the 2017 Periclean class! As amazing as this summer was, it feels like home to come back to Elon and begin on this adventure.  This summer I went on birthright with Elon (and met Kendra!!! Attached is a picture of us after climbing Masada in the Israeli desert) and then worked as a camp counselor at a day camp near my home in NYC.

I discovered the Periclean program approximately 11 days before the application was due. I called my mom and said “I don’t know much about this yet, but you know how our Elon tour guide said that Elon, for right now, is a hidden gem? That’s how I feel about this, I think this program is a hidden gem of Elon”.  I couldn’t find a clear-cut definition of what it meant to be a Periclean Scholar but I went on applying anyway. I was really attracted to the idea of building something from the bottom and developing something we create. This angle toward service work is foreign to me. I have volunteered and worked at initiatives that were already well grounded. So far, I’m so pleasantly surprised by the freedom we have and the potential we all carry. For this semester I expect to learn more about everyone, Namibia, and Project Pericles. I think before we move forward it is so important to learn the strengths, weaknesses, context, talents, and experiences in our group. Just from listening and reading some introductions it sounds like combined our class has been all over the world (both figuratively and literally!). I would love to hear more about everyone’s travels, professional backgrounds, and service experiences. By learning about each other I think it will become easier to work with one another.  I hope we all learn to balance our skills and come together to make something absolutely amazing, sustainable, and meaningful. Before we begin I think we should write a letter to ourselves to be opened at a later date. The next three years have enormous opportunities of growth and change. I think a great way for us to see that would be privately writing to ourselves and reading our expectations and thoughts a year later, two years later, during graduation etc. or whatever we decide. Working together long term gives us a really rare opportunity to get to know each other and encourage one another like a family. I want to be present and take advantage of our journey to not only have a learning experience but a fulfilling experience as well.

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