High School Leadership Conference

Since Spring 2004, the Wilks Leadership Institute has sponsored a High School Leadership Conference on Service and Leadership.  These yearly conferences, along with follow-up mini-conferences that have emerged, bring together students and faculty from approximately 20 high schools from Southwest Ohio to build relationships and civic skills.

Since the beginning of the Wilks Leadership Institute, programming efforts with high schools have taken the shape of day-long conferences, twice a year. In an effort to maintain our relationships with these high schools and create deeper, more meaningful experiences for both our High School partners and Miami students, the Wilks Institute is developing a new, sustainable curriculum of engagement. It is our hope to support both high school as well as college students as they begin to navigate community issues.

Fall Leadership Conference

The 2007 Harry T Wilks High School Engagement Fall Program was held at Miami on 15 November 2007.  As part of the Wilks Institute's ongoing commitment to collaborative work with all of our community partners, the High School Engagement Program adopted a new format this year.  A small group of high school students from Talawanda and Hamilton high schools came to Miami to explore their own understandingsof leadership and citizenship and discuss issues that are important to them. 

As part of the day's activities, the students took the Freedom Summer Walking Tour.  This experience helped stimulate discussions about strategies for social change that would be most effective today.

The students identified several issues that matter to them and their community - including school funding, school climate and the need for spaces to have dialogue.  Over the rest of the academic year, Miami student collaborators will work with the high school students, supporting them as they transform their ideas into action.

Public Art Initiative

In Fall 2006, the Harry T. Wilks Leadership Institute began a partnership with Hamilton High School students and faculty to create public art for the Booker T. Washington Center in Hamilton.  Young people involved with this art project created a series of murals in the community center, which mostly serves Hamilton’s African-American community. The murals were based on the stories of elders from the neighborhood.

Read more about the project in Miami's Winter 2007 Parents' Newsletter (pdf)