Sixteen student proctors from the Dublin School in Dublin participated in a leadership course Sept. 25 in Antrim hosted by Ursa Major Northeast Guides.

The course was designed to help develop students’ leadership effectiveness through practical experiences and open and honest after-action reviews, according to Ursa Major owner and guide Jim Creighton of Antrim.

The students, along with administrators from the Dublin School and other Ursa Major staff, arrived at Eagle Point in Antrim and departed 11 hours later “having conquered the course and internalized many leadership lessons and skills,” Creighton, a former Army colonel. said. “[These] students are now more prepared to lead other Dublin School students and provide more-effective guidance and direction as members of the school’s student leadership team.”

Carl Anhalt, dean of students at the Dublin School, attended the course and said the students put a lot of pressure on themselves and wanted to do well.

“It was a really effective course,” Anhalt said. “I think telling [students] that their leadership skills were being assessed is its own kind of pressure. They see themselves as accomplished student leaders, already having been selected as proctors, and some of them, I think, felt like they had something to prove.” 

Anhalt said this was the first time the Dublin School has participated in the course with Ursa Major and that staff “really appreciated how our students worked together,” adding that none of the challenges were unsafe. 

“The biggest physical injury, I think, was a splinter,” he said. “I was impressed how safe the challenges were, but they were mentally, physically and emotionally challenging. The students were exhausted by the end of the day.”

From Anhalt’s perspective, seeing students who are under pressure having to make decisions under time constraints is part of leadership training.

“People aren’t always going to be well rested with lots of times to make decisions,” he said, adding that college applications, helping out and classwork, on top of a busy week being proctors, is a lot of pressure. “To say now we’re going to take an entire Sunday that created its own pressure and they did a great job.”

Ursa Major’s Experiential Leadership Course consisted of four challenges. For each of these challenges, four student leaders were designated to each lead one of four teams. Student leaders assessed their situations, determined what assets were available, made decisions regarding how to most-effectively accomplish their challenge and then led a team of four students to complete their mission. After the mission was accomplished, Ursa Major guides facilitated a discussion regarding the team leader’s and the team’s performance in an after-action review (AAR) format.

“The after-action review allows for open, honest, and frank discussions about how the leader and team performed, what lessons were learned, what they would have done differently and how to improve leadership skills in the future,” Creighton said. “Teams and team leaders are then shuffled so that by the end of the fourth challenge, all students have had an opportunity to lead.”

The challenges included land navigation, building rope bridges, river operations and a multi-obstacle Leadership Reaction Course. Each challenge consisted of a series of obstacles which “stretched the student’s limits of endurance, physical ability and mental agility,” according to Creighton. Some of the obstacles required students to use survival skills (lighting a fire without a match), first aid skills (treating a simulated broken arm and open wound), canoe navigation, rock-climbing and completing a team puzzle.

“The challenges are designed to provide the student leaders with an opportunity to make decisions, motivate ‘subordinates, and guide their teams toward mission accomplishment,” Creighton said.