Your New Best Friend, Social Networking in the First Year Experience (Part 2)
The following is the second draft slice (here’s part one) of an upcoming curriculum supplement I am writing for Bedford / St. Martin’s press. Long time readers of this blog will recognize these ideas. Swift Kick, and Red Rover, have been focused on social capital and engagement for some time. As the overall curriculum comes […]
Making Them WANT To Do It (Apathy vs Engagement)
If you have ever attended a conference with us, you know we enjoy mixing stuff up through the use of Flashmobs and Blender Events, both of which stem from our Dance Floor Theory Leadership Training. The goals are to: Have Fun Increase Engagement Build Relationships Create Pattern Interrupts Induce Positive Confusion (one reason why) While […]
At Student Orientation, Don’t Forget About Bridging Social Capital
The Bystander Effect is a well-known psychological study conducted by Bibb Latane and John Darley that grew out of the stabbing death of Kitty Genovese in 1964 while eyewitnesses looked on but did nothing to help. According to Wikipedia: …individuals are less likely to offer help in an emergency situation when other people are present. […]
How to Make Student Engagement Contagious
In 1969, famed psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted a social experiment looking at the contagiousness of engagement. Wired magazine’s Jonah Lehrer accurately summarizes the experiment: In this study, Milgram had “confederates” stop on a busy city street and look upwards at the sky. He demonstrated that when one person was looking up, 40 percent of passerby […]
Laddering Student Engagement
In Swift Kick’s Dance Floor Theory leadership training, we teach students to recognize and be aware of the gradient of engagement on their campus. We teach them to understand the system and its parts so they can improve it. The simple comparison is a dance floor, where level 5 dancers are often in the middle […]
2008 Swift Kick Program Calendar
As we close the door on 2008, here’s a look back at who we worked with: 01/02/08 APCA Advisors Institute 01/03/08 APCA Advisors Institute 01/04/08 APCA Advisors Institute 01/04/08 Shepherd U 01/19/08 Potsdam U 01/30/08 Emporia State 02/01/08 U. Of Alaska 02/08/08 Western State College 02/10/08 Wesley College 02/12/08 Boise State 02/15/08 27th Annual FYE […]
Swift Kick Helps “Meh” Become an Official Word
Well ok, we weren’t the main driving force, but for the past 5 years the term “meh” has been a cornerstone of our Dance Floor Theory Leadership Training and with 200+ college trainings under our belt, I feel like we’ve done our part to help push the “meh” agenda. In DFT we show student leaders […]
Filling the Gumption Tank With Some Help From Friends
Had a great day today. A few quick thoughts: VIDEO FILE NO LONGER AVAILABLE Vid Blog 9/20/2008 from Kevin Prentiss on Vimeo. I feel like McCain’s team: what I meant by “scalability” was: we are trying to hone our app and message to grow faster. I said “Garvee”, but meant @garyvee : )
When a Hug Is More than a Hug
Last week I did our Dance Floor Theory and Free Hugs training for an Army BOSS conference because, just like schools, the Army has an extremely hard time engaging their single Soldiers. According to a 2005 Leisure Needs Survey, 80-95% of single Soldiers never participate in BOSS sponsored activities. As usual, I set up the idea […]
College Speaker of The Year – 2008
Each year student activities departments from around the country vote for their favorite speaker of the year. Last week, in Atlanta, we were honored as the 2008 College Speaker of the Year. To add to the honor, it’s our second year in a row winning the award. Last year we spoke at 60 schools, went […]