Chelsea Glidden, Southern New Hampshire University
Chelsea came to Southern New Hampshire University with extensive leadership and service experience. Seeing her potential, the Center for Community Engaged Learning offered her a position as a service learning site coordinator (a position typically reserved for upper class students). Being a site coordinator means Chelsea is the point person for communicating with the service learning site and the Center. In her first year she collaborated on developing the curriculum for a brand new college access program, went into SNHU classes to talk about service learning, tracked participant hours to ensure they were meeting the requirements of the course, and supervised other students who were employed as assistant site coordinators. This is a tremendous amount of responsibility for a first-year student, but Chelsea excelled in this role. It was not long before the other newly hired first year students were looking to her as a leader.
Throughout her three years on campus, Chelsea has continued to grow as a leader. She has now been the site coordinator at three different service learning sites. After working her first year with our college access program, Chelsea spent her second year working with refugee children at an after-school program in a local apartment complex. While there, she was always looking for ways to improve the program and to get more students involved. This year Chelsea was placed at a brand new service learning site. The professional staff knew there would be some challenges in getting a new site up and running and we also knew Chelsea was the perfect student for the job. As usual, she has not disappointed.
In addition to her leadership at the Center for Community Engaged Learning, Chelsea is a well-respected leader in other areas of campus life. She works as a resident assistant on campus and has maintained a 3.85 cumulative grade point average. She has been named to the President’s List every semester and is a member of the University Honors Program. The campus and Manchester community have greatly benefited from Chelsea’s quiet leadership, dedication, and strong work ethic.
