Cardinal Community Leaders

The Cardinal Community Leader Program application is now open!

Cardinal Community Leader Program Applications are available each spring semester, after the 15 of March. If you would like to apply, please come back and visit the site in late spring. Should you want additional information, please do not hesitate to call the Ettling Center for Civic Leadership and Sustainability at (210) 283-6423 or visit the office located in Administration Building Room 158.

Cardinal Community Leaders Program

The Cardinal Community Leaders is an initiative of the Ettling Center for Civic Leadership and provides an opportunity for undergraduate students to deepen and broaden their leadership capacity through service. The goal of this program is to expand the possibility for students to learn leadership skills from extended service experiences both locally and globally. The premise of this goal is that students can have greater potential for problem solving, civic engagement and civic leadership only after having experienced and reflected upon meaningful service encounters.

Why become a Cardinal Community Leader?

  • Serve locally with one of our partner agencies.
  • Serve globally through an international service experience.
  • Develop your Leadership skills.
  • Participate in Mentorship opportunities.

About the Program

The Cardinal Community Leaders is a leadership program that encourages students to develop civic leadership competencies and increase awareness of social justice issues from extended local and global service experiences.

Participants are selected from the diverse UIW undergraduate population.

  • The Cardinal Community Leaders (CCL) program, a model program that encourages students to develop civic leadership competencies and increase awareness of social justice issues from extended service experiences both locally and globally. Since the Cardinal Community Leadership program's inception, our fifty-four members have conducted over 4,000 hours of community service impacting children, adults and senior citizens in a host of local community organizations.
  • CCL Cohort 2 members served at the Children's Bereavement Center, Voices for Children, St. John Boscoe Catholic School, SaySi Arts Program, Kinetic Kids, CHRISTUS Santa Rosa, Ella Austin, The Village of Incarnate Word and the Sisters of Charity archives center.
  • CCL Cohort 3 members served at the Guadalupe Community Center, Healy-Murphy, SA Pets Alive, The Village, CHRISTUS Hospital, Women's Global Connection, the Veterans Hospital, Visitation House and the Sisters of Charity Denman Estate.
  • The 2015-2016 Cardinal Community Leader Cohort (III) was the first to enroll in the Ettling Center's Social Justice Leadership Course taught by (late) Dr. Robert Connelly, Dr. Barbara Aranda-Naranjo and Monica Cruz and featured speakers discussing issues such as immigration, human trafficking, domestic violence, hunger, homelessness, water and the Pope's Encyclical.
  • Cohort 4 members chose the following organizations as their volunteer sites: The Village at Incarnate Word, Each One-Teach One, The Witte Museum, Healy Murphy, Martinez Women's Street Center, Prevent Blindness, and Headwaters. All students enrolled in the Social Justice Leadership course in Fall 2016 were asked to register for the Social Justice Leadership lab in the spring semester. This was the first time the Spring Leadership Lab was offered and taught. The purpose of the lab course is to help students further develop the knowledge, attitudes and skills necessary to become concerned, compassionate, enlightened, and effective leaders.