Mungano members develop leadership skills

Baldwin City, Kan. — Six Mungano members, Baker University’s longtime student-run diversity organization, joined more than 600 other elite student leaders last week at the Big XII Conference on Black Student Government in Stillwater, Okla.

Lauren Allen-Brown, Tyler Sloan, Khadijah Lane, Haley Barnes, Antonio Adgers and Michael Stevenson participated in the conference, titled “Ignite: Reawakening Our Momentum.” The leadership event is now in its 38th year.

“By attending the conference, I think that students gained the proper tools and knowledge to become successful leaders for their organizations and society,” said Allen-Brown, the Mungano president and a junior from Kansas City, Mo., and the group’s president. “We were able to experience a different culture of students who are striving for the same goals.”

The conference provided workshops on career planning, empowerment, personal finances, music, life skills and spirituality.

Teresa Clounch, associate dean of students and director of multicultural affairs, traveled to Oklahoma with the student leaders. For more than a decade, students from Baker have been involved in the conference.

“Our students were active participants at the workshops,” Clounch said. “They were involved in the discussion and asked questions of our speakers. I was proud of them for doing that. When that occurs, the co-curricular learning is robust.”

Once the Baker students returned, Clounch made sure they were prepared to present a report to their classmates. She believed strongly in the leadership team sharing information from the prestigious conference.

Allen-Brown said the conference re-energized Mungano, derived from a longer Swahili phrase that means brothers and sisters united. The messages concerning human dignity, mutual respect and self-determination are consistent with the principles Baker’s diversity group were founded.

“For the students who participate in Mungano and work on the executive board, the organization is a place where they can express themselves freely and be educated on current issues that are taking place in our society,” Allen-Brown said.