“I genuinely just love that people can enjoy themselves and have a great time and engage with their peers, faculty, administrators,” said Cris Collado on leading the Founder’s Day Ball Committee for his third and last time.
Cris Collado is a fifth-year student who has a resume of roles held on campus including Resident Assistant, Student Government Association Senator, President of Gear & Triangle, President of Rho Alpha Sigma, Founder’s Day Ball Chair, and multiple leadership roles within Sigma Phi Epsilon. From his roles on campus, he hopes that he made a long-term impact by challenging people to think that “leadership is because they care [about something]” and imparting his wisdom on future student leaders.
From his freshman year, Collado looked up to student leaders on campus and admired them. He stated this as a reason why he joined Sigma Phi Epsilon. “I befriended [these leaders] before I knew they were in SigEp,” said Collado. “Once they revealed themselves to be SigEp, I thought, oh this is cool, there’s a lot of campus leaders in one place.” Being in a fraternity helped him develop himself as a leader: “Even though we all gravitated toward the same place, we’re all different people. We knew in our fraternity, we all have to understand the different interests of your group and what they need and what is missing.” He cited that in his fraternity, face-to-face interactions and learning from different people helped him develop himself and helped him understand relationships.
Collado attended two national Sigma Phi Epsilon events that furthered his development. After his sophomore year, Collado attended the Ruck Leadership Institute. At Ruck, he learned the principles of being an effective leader: “All of these ideals further endorsed and made me self-assured in my leadership style,” he said. “I think getting that very official session and [being told] this is effective leadership was cool. I think this came at the perfect time.” He also stated that it reassured him that he could be an effective leader on campus.
“That was like, insane,” said Collado regarding his second national event, Tragos Quest for Greece, which he participated in last Summer. Only 16 Sigma Phi Epsilon brothers participate in Tragos Quest each year. “When you get [selected], it’s a really big deal,” said Collado. “I think what Tragos did, it gave me a more introspective look at myself. I think a lot of times leaders are externally based; there’s talking to people, organizing events, this and that, but this trip made me take a step back and just understand how I navigate the world and I how I navigate my relationships and things I do and why I do them. It kind of got to the root reason of why I do the things I do. It was a cool exploratory experience for me.”
As a leader, Collado appreciates the ability to make an impact on individual students’ lives. As an RA, he noted that “it’s a really unique experience because you’re heavily looked up to by your residents.” He also wants to help his residents: “For me it comes down to how am I helping students and how can I help them form and be a better version of themselves,” said Collado.
On a larger scale, he also enjoyed making an impact by chairing the Founder’s Day Ball Committee. “I’m so happy I did it,” said Collado. “I love that I can provide an event where tickets are sold out in a matter of five minutes and is highly anticipated on campus.” He enjoyed
creating an environment in which people could enjoy themselves while interacting with their peers, faculty, and administrators.
He also cited Founder’s Day Ball as an event that helped him develop his leadership abilities: “It’s definitely tested me a lot, but all for the better,” said Collado. Each year that he ran Founder’s Day Ball, the committee grew. “Things that I did the year before that I did alone, I was now tasking to other people, which made me have to change my leadership style [to incorporate] more teamwork-based operations.” He noted that he mentions Founder’s Day Ball on job interviews due to its large-scale size. “It’s super impressive if you think about how something so big and so popular has remained such a tradition of the past 10 years,” said Collado.
Now, in his final semester at Stevens, Collado aims to guide younger student leaders in the future: “For me, it’s not so much about managing and micromanaging about what they’re doing. [Instead, it’s] almost whispering in their ear to a certain degree. Like this is really cool, what you’re doing here is awesome, here’s some feedback I have,” said Collado. He said he wants to ensure that student leaders put forth ideas that are their own, and have older leaders serve as mentors. He cited Gear & Triangle as a resource.
While Gear & Triangle President, Collado helped solidify the Dean’s Activities List and the associated mentorship program. “We have the mentorship program that we started and made more official during my presidency.” As President, he aimed to solidify Gear & Triangle as an organization to aid in personal development: “I think a lot of people here are very career-focused and driven to just do their school work, academia, get some jobs, graduate, and move forward, but I don’t think there’s a huge focus on character development.”
As a Stevens student, he notes that support for student activities here is “underdeveloped,” which is a challenge for student leaders: “I think that it’s a good thing but also a bad thing,” said Collado.“There’s a lot of room for new ideas and growth and change, [but] it’s also hard to have a lot of structure for student leaders to follow.” He states that due to a lack of structure, it can sometimes be difficult to determine where to start to make an impact at Stevens. “I think there’s a lot of room for tackling for big problems, and I think it’s hard to figure it out and find the vehicles to get that chance,” he stated. One potential vehicle he mentioned is the Student Government Association. He notes that Student Government Association officials should remind themselves that “they’re the representatives of the student body and [should] not just [be influenced by] personal motivations and interests.” He added, “I think that’ll help the SGA and the way people perceive them. If they want to be that voice, then I think it has infinite potential to be a really cool think tank for a lot of people.”
Generally, he reminded student leaders not to be leaders for recognition. “There should be a driving force that leaders feel compelled aside [from] recognition,” said Collado. However, he did note that recognition creates excitement for student leaders and inspires people: “When we look at leaders outside of Stevens, people who we all look up to — and we feel inspired. [Like], wow, they’re awesome, I want to do what they’re doing.”
Collado noted that as a university, the school is shifting towards student-centricity, but that change isn’t going to happen overnight: “Is it going to happen in one day? Absolutely not,” said Collado. “There needs to be a huge overhaul; we have to grow a lot more in a lot of aspects.” He wants to remind upper administration to always take into account student feedback: “Students are at the foundation of the school. I think always involving students for any decision making for your university is key.”
Be First to Comment