'Team-building' activities join students in Wharton, SEAS

In a joint effort, undergraduate students in the Wharton School and the School of Engineering and Applied Science convened in the second-floor lounge of Hill College House Tuesday to put their leadership and negotiating skills to work. The 25 undergraduates took part in a workshop entitled "Group Dynamics and Teambuilding" -- the first session of a new three-part leadership series sponsored by the undergraduate division of the Wharton and Engineering schools. First-year Education graduate student Kirk Daulerio, one of the three program coordinators and a student affairs intern for the undergraduate division of Wharton, said the program arose from "students' demand for more leadership activities that would unite different schools and departments." The 90-minute session consisted of three activities followed by discussion periods. In each activity, the students -- who interacted in groups of about eight each -- had to complete a specific task. Afterwards, all of the participants gathered to talk about the outcomes of the activities. The first activity required the students to select a well-known person to give the Commencement address in May. Each student was assigned a role to play -- for example, some participants had to act as the leaders of the groups, while others took the role of passive listeners. Many of the more opinionated participants said they found it very difficult to conform to the more passive roles and added that they were frustrated by the task. Nonetheless, the project enabled students to pinpoint the qualities of a good leader. "Often times, in group settings? the squeaky wheel gets listened to," said program coordinator Oufreez Argenta, a first-year student in the Graduate School of Education and an intern in the Engineering School's student affairs department. "It's often a bad thing but it's a true thing." Engineering junior Brian Sullivan said there is always a dominating person in a group. "If others agree with him, he becomes the leader. If they disagree, he becomes a nuisance." The students recognized that there was a tendency in the discussion to wait for others to speak first. They also noted that the leaders are the ones who can assess what needs to be done and set priorities. The second activity required the participants to pretend they were members of a civil defense committee instructed to choose six people from a group of 12 to build a society. The group included a senior Civil Engineering major, a 30-year-old male electrician with depressive tendencies and a 37-year-old racist emergency nurse. First-year Education graduate student and program coordinator Nayla Bahri, a student affairs intern at the Wharton School, said necessary leadership skills are applicable not only to the workplace but also to classroom and extracurricular activities. The final activity required the groups to cross a grid, one at a time, while communicating "silently." The participants had to determine the correct path to travel without speaking. During the last discussion, Bahri asked the students, "How can you relate these kinds of group experiences to real life?" Sullivan said "these mock trials don't always relate to the real world? not all people focus on dynamics in group situations." "Even though we had time constraints, [the activities] were an effective way of simulating real life and the discussions were insightful," Engineering freshman Khalil Abdullah said. The next sessions -- "Communicating Effectively" and "Nuts and Bolts of Running an Organization" -- will be held on Tuesday, March 2, and Tuesday, March 30, respectively.

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