Posted by vandyleads on Thursday, November 30, 2017 in News.

We are honored to share the reflection of Vanderbilt senior Jean Zhang. Jean is from Shanghai, China and double majoring in Women and Gender History and Child Development with a Spanish minor. She is the President of the Vanderbilt Undergraduate Chinese Association. Check out her reflection on her leadership experience here at Vanderbilt!

Jean Zhang

To be completely honest, before I became president of VUCA (Vanderbilt Undergraduate Chinese Association), I had serious doubts as to whether or not this organization should exist any more. The campus is already home to many different Asian cultural organizations. There has also been more than one organization for Chinese culture or Chinese populations. Why does VUCA have to be there? If we just want to put up social events for people with Chinese backgrounds, there might be other organizations that can do it better and with way more resources. If we want to assume the role of “educating” the campus about Chinese culture, but people who come to our events normally know about Chinese culture already, who and on what exactly are we educating? However, after some thinking through and talking with people, I saw a gap that VUCA would be able to fill. I see that more and more students are learning Chinese and are curious about Chinese culture, regardless of their background, but they don’t necessarily have access to practice outside of the classroom.

At the same time, the number of Chinese native speakers in Vanderbilt is increasing every year. The need for Chinese culture outside of an academic setting is the gap that VUCA should fill with the help of people who have knowledge about the culture. So, I ran for president with the mission of building a bridge between cultures. We hope to create a community that opens the door for people with Chinese backgrounds, and opens a window for people who want to learn more about Chinese culture. To know the “why” is the first step to lead a group. The next is “how”, as we are often told in leadership trainings. The “how” for me as a president is to have a board that can be as enthusiastic as I am about the “why.” I can’t lead a group that is just half-hearted. Through my conversations before, I knew there were people who shared the same values, and there were enough people who expressed interested in helping out. Lucky enough, I was able to start off with a passionate board. To keep my board motivated and close with each other is my second “how” in this leadership role. From experience, I’ve seen that when relationships within a group fall apart, the task that the group is supposed to focus on also falls through. So when I started to be the president, I also set a goal to build a happy board, a board that could have fun with each other as well as feel safe to debate different ideas. “What” I did to achieve this goal was to organize regular board social activities, like movies on a Friday night or dinners after board meetings. I also tried to take into consideration feedback from board members as much as possible and took opportunities to express my gratitude for everyone.

As much as I cared about how the actual events turned out, I also cared about how people felt during the process and valued the personal connections we built. As a result, VUCA has been working pretty well this semester. We had our first event in the SLC ballroom ever; we worked with the Chinese Department to provide extra credit opportunities for the first time; we hosted the most successful Bubble Tea fundraiser as well. I am not sure how much I can take credit for the achievements that VUCA has had, but I am proud to be the 10th president of VUCA. Being a leader always has a learning curve and I will for sure continue to learn as I lead.