The Gordon Center has a saying, “Once a Gordon Scholar, always a Gordon Scholar.” Therefore, Executive Director Dr. Ebonee Williams and Program Coordinator Tahlor Cleveland held an informal dinner in Palo Alto, CA with 15 alumni to check in and develop programs for Gordon Scholars as they grow in their careers.  The number one request: they want to mentor existing students to help them develop into Engineering Leaders.  The second request: networking with other alumni to keep track of each other’s projects and professional activities.

Since alumni are excited about mentoring, the Gordon Engineering Leadership Center will continue to bring alumni to lunch meetings with current students to discuss what it is like to lead professional teams versus student teams.  For networking, the alumni are invited to annual events, such as the Awards Dinner and the End of Year Celebration coming up on June 2.

Those alumni in attendance at the Palo Alto dinner spanned the seven year history of the Gordon Center from the inaugural class through the 2013-2014 cohort.  They are currently pursuing a wide range of endeavors from working with tech companies, like Google Life, to being the technical lead at startups.  Some are in graduate school pursuing the Ph.D. and M.D. at Stanford; one is a mayoral candidate for the City of Berkeley.  After graduation, Gordon Scholars continue to excel, pursue leadership and develop engineering innovation.   

The evening began with recollections of their fondest memories as students in the Gordon Program. One attendee said, “The best part of the Gordon Center, to me, was having a place to go - a resource to reach out to - for advice.”  Another said, “I really enjoyed the intimacy of that, having a close knit group to talk to about leadership issues.”   Many of her fellow SEALs (Successful Engineers And Leaders) shared personal memories about the guidance they received from Dr. Williams.

While reminiscing, multiple SEALs expressed how much they enjoyed the various workshops, with particular favorites including Emotional Intelligence and the UCSD Challenge Course. The evening was a strong reminder of the positive impact the Gordon Center has had over Jacobs School students as they continue in their careers as effective leaders.

The second annual Challenge Course Event for Gordon Scholars was held on Saturday, April 23 to teach leadership and team building skills.  The event was found to be invaluable in bringing Scholars closer together, building a bond from these special memories.  The skills learned through the challenge course reinforce the Engineering leadership traits taught by the Gordon Center, such as communicating vision, accepting personal responsibility and engendering loyalty from team members.  
 
Gordon Scholars met bright and early for the UCSD Challenge Course, which is a multi-element athletic course focused on team building and leadership skills for group success. The morning began with ice breaker exercises to learn about the communication styles of each person in the group. This led participants to reflect on how one may lean on others in similar positions, or with similar challenges, for support and new perspectives. This theme of supporting fellow leaders ran throughout the day as the group split into two to tackle the high elements 20 and 40 feet in the air. Here, each group had to work together to accomplish the goals of three different physical activities, making sure not to leave any team member behind and to rely on each-others skills’ to move forward.
 
With each challenge, facilitators encouraged all participants to think about how they connect to people, both on and off their teams, and to pay attention to their defaults (i.e., their typical modes of behavior).  Only by recognizing your typical reactions can you learn if you need to change, based on the different situations that you encounter throughout the various challenges. The day ended with a zip-line back down to the ground and a closing debrief on the lessons learned throughout the day, such as the need to share resources when you are trying to get things done.