Photo illustration by Dan Annarino

Left to right, Ray Martyn, Otto Doering, Pamala Morris, Randy Woodson and Ashley Woodward are five examples of the many Purdue Agriculture faculty, administrators and students involved in leadership roles on campus and around the world.

"Leadership," according to Randy Woodson, Glenn W. Sample Dean of Agriculture at Purdue, "is about celebrating other people's successes."

Purdue Agriculture has earned the right to do a lot of celebrating this year, because its people — from students, to faculty and staff, right up to the top administrators — are leaders in a number of national organizations.

That leaders continue to emerge at all levels in the college is no accident. It is, in fact, part of a plan to ensure that leadership characteristics in students are identified, cultivated and rewarded, according to Woodson.

"We have students who are involved in leadership programs where they are matched with coaches and mentors who help them deal with the hurdles they must cross to become certified through the leadership program," he says. "It's a program built on the longstanding tradition of having our students emerge as leaders all across this campus."

But the plan is to develop leaders for a lifetime, not just while they are students.

"Purdue Agriculture turns out graduates who turn out to be leaders in developing agricultural policy that affects everyone," Woodson says. "These leadership programs will help ensure that this is still true 20 years from now."

In many ways, Ashley Woodward's schedule is no different from the schedules of the other 8,000 or so seniors on the West Lafayette campus.

Her days are filled with classes, duties for student organizations she's a member of, applying for jobs as her May graduation date approaches, and of course, studying. For this Purdue agricultural communication student, however, there is one more task on her plate.

Woodward is president of National Agricultural Communicators of Tomorrow, a networking organization for ACT chapters whose members mainly are agricultural communication students at universities across the United States and Canada.

Having served as the 2005-06 NACT first vice president, Woodward saw a need for more involvement by Purdue's own ACT chapter and chapters at other universities. So, at the NACT national convention in Portland, Ore., last July, she was excited to be elected president and ready to begin achieving these goals.

"I want to get chapters that aren't active to get active in NACT events. A recent success was getting the University of Kentucky involved," Woodward says.

As the NACT president, Woodward's duties include organizing and scheduling the events for the group's national convention, which will be in Louisville in July, making chapter contacts, and making sure others on her officer team complete their tasks.

"The other officers are from all over. We have two from Texas Tech, one from Cal/Poly State University, one from Oklahoma State, and our adviser is from Texas A&M," she says. "It's been fun getting to know the other officers at executive meetings in Chicago. We're becoming good friends."

Woodward says she works closely with the other officers to keep updated on expenses and convention planning, fund-raising issues, and organizing the group's Critique and Awards Contest, where NACT members submit communication projects they have created and have them judged by industry professionals.

For her leadership role, Woodward earns one credit hour and has her travel expenses paid by Purdue's Department of Agricultural Communication. She says she spends about five hours a week on her NACT duties, but she expects that time demands will increase as the convention approaches.

"Our convention next summer is with the Agricultural Media Summit and the Livestock Publication Council," Woodward says. "So I'm working with committee members from those organizations, letting them know what NACT needs from them and that sort of thing."

She considers the demands well worth it, though, since it means strengthening an organization that has been such a big part of her own college experience.

Honing her leadership skills by working for NACT is just one positive byproduct of helping strengthen the organization.

Woodward is just one of many Purdue Agriculture students who have taken on leadership roles that many times are time-consuming or that may put the student on unfamiliar ground. For example, a program in Washington, D.C., that puts students to work as interns in various government programs has had a Purdue student working in the White House for two summers in a row.

The Purdue College of Agriculture Leadership Development Certificate Program was launched in August 2005 to provide a structured framework for students to enhance leadership skills. Thirty-seven students are on track to complete their program certification in April.