New sabbatical officers embark on leadership training

Student Union sabbatical officers from Cardiff University are embarking on a yearlong Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM) qualification to equip them with the skills and knowledge to effectively manage and run the Students’ Union.

The six newly elected officers, who will represent the University’s 27,000 students for the 2008/09 academic year, will undertake a bespoke course put on by one of Wales’ leading ILM centres, freshbaked™ Corporate, which will see them achieve an ILM level 5 award in management.

The only University that undertakes such extensive training for its sabbatical officers, this is the third year that Cardiff’s Students’ Union has run this training academy.

With all six sabbatical officers from the 2007/08 academic year successfully completing their ILM qualifications, both past and present officers recently attended a handover event run by freshbaked™ Corporate in Tenby where the successes of the previous year were celebrated and priorities and objectives for the new term of office were crystallised.

With half of the session taking place on Tenby’s South Beach, the officers undertook experiential learning exercises including a series of trust and leadership activities during the three day handover.

Managing Director of freshbaked™ Corporate, Vanessa White, who runs the training academy, says: “The training academy is extremely important for these officers as they go from being students one minute, to managers the next. The ILM level 5 qualification in management not only equips theses officers with the skills and capabilities they need to run the Students’ Union, but it gives them a recognisable and regarded qualification when they go onto future employment.”

Jason Dunlop, General Manager of the Students’ Union, says “During their term in post our sabbatical officers are quickly thrust into the commercial world with responsibilities ranging from the day to day direction of the Union to the management of the Unions’ staff and budgets. The ILM level 5 award is therefore a fitting qualification for them to undertake – it gives them the theoretical knowledge and work-based experience to allow them to prosper in their roles.”

Over the next year, the officers will undertake both academic and work-based learning for their ILM awards including modules on managing context and change, managing people and self management and skills.