By Sarahbeth Metzger
Elm Staff Writer
Washington College held its 2025 annual Presidential Leadership Summit from Jan. 17 to 19, prompting insightful ideas from students for improving the campus community.
The three-day retreat provided participants with opportunities to learn, network, and share their work. Students were assigned to summiteer groups with peer mentors and engaged in panels, dinners, networking events, and team development activities.
Within these groups, participants brainstormed ideas to enhance the campus and College environment, culminating in a presentation called the WAC Tank.
At WAC Tank, donors, alumni, staff, faculty, and community leaders gathered to hear students’ pitches. The program helped participants develop crucial networking, presentation, and public speaking skills — valuable tools for both their future careers and making a difference on campus.
“The Leadership Summit gave me the opportunity to voice my thoughts on how to better the school,” freshman Emma Most said. “It helped me work on public speaking and gave me networking practice.”
Peer mentors and past Summit participants guided students through the process, ensuring communication, engagement, and constructive feedback.
“The Leadership Summit was an amazing opportunity for students from all educational backgrounds to come together and create ideas to enhance our school community,” peer mentor sophomore Jireh Ray said.
Senior Ben Kelly, this year’s lead summiteer, described his experience as rewarding.
“As head summiteer, I had the honor of working with all of the other summiteers and helping them organize their groups,” Kelly said. “I made sure they all had fun, and I’m very glad I was able to be involved.”
This year’s proposals focused on the theme “Making a Change.”
Notable ideas included Cultivating Connections, a plan to renovate freshmen common rooms to improve student retention and belonging, Alumni-Student Collaboration Program, a mentorship initiative through the Career Center, and Sassa-Fast, a convenience store in Sassafras Hall.
Other ideas, such as Get Outside Initiative: Flock to the Green, proposed installing outdoor fitness equipment to encourage students to be active and outside. The First Impressions group argued for a redesign of the WC website using student input to improve aesthetics and accessibility.
Two final initiatives proposed renovations involving the Hill Dorms, including the West Hall Rec Center, a centralized hub for club meetings and social gatherings, and Fostering Entrepreneurship, which would be a student-run storefront on campus.
Past initiatives from the Summit resulted in projects that have come to fruition around campus. This list includes ideas such as mural painting in the Goose Nest, The Honk emails, and Shoreline Socials, which is transitioning into the new bar opening in the Faculty Lounge.
Members of the Presidential Leadership Council, who funded the development of the bar, were in attendance at the summit.
According to President of the College Dr. Mike Sosulski, throughout the presentations, they took notes on potential ideas that could be feasible for the campus community.
“They are looking for their next thing, which is really awesome,” Dr. Sosulski said. “You can’t wish for better than that. A group of people who are energetic, have a network that will help us come up with practical solutions to get really cool things.”
After the event, WAC Tank attendees selected winners in several categories. First place for voters’ choice was awarded to Cultivating Connections: First Year Common Rooms, with second and third place going to the Get Outside Initiative and West Hall Rec Center respectively.
Photos courtesy of Stephen Hook
Photo Caption: Over seven groups participated in the Presidential Leadership Summit this year.
