FIUTS and President of FIUTS Student Board
Foundation for International Understanding through Students (FIUTS) is a Non-Profit Organization located in Seattle and based at the University of Washington. This organization connects university students to local and global communities through programs that build international awareness, cross-cultural communication, and informed leadership. FIUTS Student Board is a campus Registered Student Organization, which is composed of an elected group of student leaders who support FIUTS's work on campus and represent the student perspective as voting members of the Board of Trustees. In addition to serving as Board Members, the Student Board plans events, takes part in ongoing leadership development, and provides strategic leadership to the staff and organization. I became a FIUTS facilitator in 2012 and I served on the Student Board as the Wednesday Lunch chair from 2013-2014, and I served as president on the 2014-2015 board. I want to join FIUTS because I want to find an opportunity to grow as a leader and to be able to give back and serve this community I love.
Strategic Planning:
Mission
Learning and reasoning/ Civic Responsibility:
Other perspective/ Diversity
Communication:
Facilitation
Communication:
Listening
Learning and Reasoning/ Self-awareness and Development:
Reflection and application/ receive feedback
Interpersonal interaction
Motivation
2013-2014 FIUTS Student Board Retreat 2014-2015 FIUTS Student Board Retreat
Foundation for International Understanding through Students (FIUTS) is a Non-Profit Organization located in Seattle and based at the University of Washington. This organization connects university students to local and global communities through programs that build international awareness, cross-cultural communication, and informed leadership. FIUTS Student Board is a campus Registered Student Organization, which is composed of an elected group of student leaders who support FIUTS's work on campus and represent the student perspective as voting members of the Board of Trustees. In addition to serving as Board Members, the Student Board plans events, takes part in ongoing leadership development, and provides strategic leadership to the staff and organization. I became a FIUTS facilitator in 2012 and I served on the Student Board as the Wednesday Lunch chair from 2013-2014, and I served as president on the 2014-2015 board. I want to join FIUTS because I want to find an opportunity to grow as a leader and to be able to give back and serve this community I love.
Strategic Planning:
Mission
- Ability to fully understand organization's mission and fulfill it's goal and expectations.
- The FIUTS core mission is to create passion for international affairs and cross-culture understanding in the community, and express voices for international students and the larger community. In my role as a liaison between the FIUTS and the International Student Health Insurance Plan (ISHIP) committee, I attended the regular committee meetings to discuss on the fees proposed for the ISHIP plan and express the opinions from an international student's perspective. At the end of April 2014, the committee was able to carry out a new ISHIP plan, which cut down the overall fee and resulted in a more beneficial plan for the international student community. Like a compass, mission will guide and direct an organization to the right track and convey to people its philosophy. As a representative, I made sure that the FIUTS's mission and values had been completely expressed and understood.
Learning and reasoning/ Civic Responsibility:
Other perspective/ Diversity
- Ability to fully hear, understands, and respect different opinions and perspectives. Putting oneself in the shoes of others.
- Working with a diverse and dynamic group of people who come from different cultural backgrounds, my leadership experience with FIUTS has allowed me to constantly hear and receive new ideas from the group. Instead of working on a collective scale, I have focused on each individual's opinions and development. When encountering conflict with the team, I put myself in the shoes of others in order to understand the perspectives they bring and to reinforce the value they possess which they bring from their culture. Moreover, by reflecting on my lens and looking at my own assumptions, I am better able to build strong and reciprocal relationships with people different than myself. Throughout my experience, I have seen myself grow as an individual who possesses cross-cultural capacities and has the ability to communicate effectively with diverse populations.
Communication:
Facilitation
- Ability to enable groups of people to work more effectively and collaboratively in order to achieve goal of the event/ project/ mission.
- On the FIUTS Student Board, there are 17 of us are working on several different projects throughout the year, such as Cultural Fest, Global Gala, Wednesday Lunch, etc. Each of the members in the group serves as a chair to plan, organize, and execute the events. As the president of the FIUTS Student Board, in order to have a better understanding of each sub-committee, I attended their meetings consistently and bring the issues or concerns back to the student board in order to facilitate a discussion about the issues and find the solution at the larger board meeting. I follow up with issues until they have been resolved. Through my facilitation of discussions, I committed to communicate efficiently between two groups and focus on making the process easier for everyone to get involved and achieve goals.
Communication:
Listening
- The active process of making meaning (receiving, understanding, and interpret) out of a person’s communicative message.
- When I first met the rest of the student board members, I not only paid attention and listened to what they talked about, but I also focused on what they were really saying. In order to establish a comfortable relationship, I act differently with different people. For example, some members are more likely to interact with people on a personal level, so I focused on building a close, interpersonal relationship. On the other hand, some members prefer to be efficient and finish the tasks as soon as possible, so I try to be more straight to the point when I communicate with them. By actively listening, I am able to interpret the message beyond the words and to best serve others and projects.
Learning and Reasoning/ Self-awareness and Development:
Reflection and application/ receive feedback
- Ability to engage in self reflection, receive feedback from others and conduct self evaluation as a leader.
- I constantly reflect on my behaviors, organizational skills, and decisions I have made after weekly meetings. By casually talking to the board members and facilitators, I am able to reflect on whether my work has met their expectations. I've also scheduled appointments with staff members to get some feedback from my recent work. The FIUTS Student Board has weekly meetings that allow me to receive feedback from the group. Quarterly surveys and one-on-one casual check-in interviews are also carried out for me to improve my service at the Student Board. After collecting all of the feedback, I look back to the issues that have been mentioned and see what changes can be made and how I can continue to improve. This feedback and continual reflection have allowed me to keep myself accountable to my expectations and continue to grow as a leader.
Interpersonal interaction
Motivation
- Self-motived, and to achieve and able to increase other people’s desire to do things.
- In order to make sure each committee chair are dedicated themselves for organizing FIUTS's events and programming, my way of motivating is to establish productive relationships and lead by example. Motivation for us is essential to success in every project because it allows us to willingly to spend our time and energy to focus and work hard towards the goal.
2013-2014 FIUTS Student Board Retreat 2014-2015 FIUTS Student Board Retreat