Rachel Horgan
Future Early Childhood Special Education Teacher
About Me
I am Rachel Horgan and I am originally from Jamestown, North Dakota. I am the second oldest child of 6 children, 3 brothers and 2 sisters. My favorite memories usually come from the time I have spent with my parents and siblings. I enjoy watching movies, listening to music, and hanging out with my friends and siblings in my free time. I also enjoy playing and watching sports, and supporting the Minnesota Vikings on Sundays.
I am currently attending the University of Mary and double majoring in Early Childhood Education and Special Education. My mother works for the Anne Carlson Center in Jamestown, which is where my love for working with individuals with special needs began. I remember spending my summers volunteering in Mrs. Olson's early childhood special education classroom. I hope that when I graduate I can inspire others the way that she did for me and work to meet the individual needs or each student.
I am currently attending the University of Mary and double majoring in Early Childhood Education and Special Education. My mother works for the Anne Carlson Center in Jamestown, which is where my love for working with individuals with special needs began. I remember spending my summers volunteering in Mrs. Olson's early childhood special education classroom. I hope that when I graduate I can inspire others the way that she did for me and work to meet the individual needs or each student.
My Servant Leadership
My time in the Emerging Leadership Academy and at the University of Mary has taught me the importance of servant leadership.
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University of Mary Day of Service
For both my freshman and sophomore year for day of service, I volunteered at thrift stores by helping clean, organize, go through donations, and whatever, else was needed. We had a little direction on what needed to be done when helping, but could work and do things however we pleased. This meant that the group needed to work together to come up with a plan of action. This was easy for me to come into a place of leadership and work together with the rest of the group to figure out our plan and who was going to do what. In the end, I was able to help out the community is a simple way that might only be noticed by the people that worked at the thrift stores, but would ultimately help those in the community who shop there. This past years day of service, I went to Mandan were they were fixing up an old school and turning them into apartments. This is something the University of Mary has been doing for day of service since I first came to school here. Basically I was asked to help doing cleaning in the building. At this point, the apartment building was getting close to being done so the help that was needed was just simple cleaning. It doesn't seem like much, but it was something that could be done with enough people in a short amount of time.
ELA Projects and Events
During my time in each year of ELA up to this point, I had lots of opportunities to work on my servant leadership within the classroom and in the community. Freshman year, I really learned about what servant leadership is and began to apply it to my time in class by collaborating with all my classmates and discuss how you would handle different ethical theories. During sophomore year, I was able to move my servant leadership up a level and into the community. Within small group in our class we came up with a servant leadership project. My group spent time working with TR 4 Heart and Soul which is a therapeutic riding center in Bismarck. We volunteered our time to work with young children and helped with whatever was needed at their location from walking along side horses with children riding to helping clean. Lastly, this past year I was part of the activities committee of our junior class. I worked together with my fellow classmates to come up with fun activities that our class could do together. It may not seem like a big thing, but our small group had to come up with activities that would allow our classmates a break from everything. We had to work together in our group and decide who was going to do what for each plan. All of my experiences have taught me that servant leadership is about using your strengths and talents to help and lead others.
For both my freshman and sophomore year for day of service, I volunteered at thrift stores by helping clean, organize, go through donations, and whatever, else was needed. We had a little direction on what needed to be done when helping, but could work and do things however we pleased. This meant that the group needed to work together to come up with a plan of action. This was easy for me to come into a place of leadership and work together with the rest of the group to figure out our plan and who was going to do what. In the end, I was able to help out the community is a simple way that might only be noticed by the people that worked at the thrift stores, but would ultimately help those in the community who shop there. This past years day of service, I went to Mandan were they were fixing up an old school and turning them into apartments. This is something the University of Mary has been doing for day of service since I first came to school here. Basically I was asked to help doing cleaning in the building. At this point, the apartment building was getting close to being done so the help that was needed was just simple cleaning. It doesn't seem like much, but it was something that could be done with enough people in a short amount of time.
ELA Projects and Events
During my time in each year of ELA up to this point, I had lots of opportunities to work on my servant leadership within the classroom and in the community. Freshman year, I really learned about what servant leadership is and began to apply it to my time in class by collaborating with all my classmates and discuss how you would handle different ethical theories. During sophomore year, I was able to move my servant leadership up a level and into the community. Within small group in our class we came up with a servant leadership project. My group spent time working with TR 4 Heart and Soul which is a therapeutic riding center in Bismarck. We volunteered our time to work with young children and helped with whatever was needed at their location from walking along side horses with children riding to helping clean. Lastly, this past year I was part of the activities committee of our junior class. I worked together with my fellow classmates to come up with fun activities that our class could do together. It may not seem like a big thing, but our small group had to come up with activities that would allow our classmates a break from everything. We had to work together in our group and decide who was going to do what for each plan. All of my experiences have taught me that servant leadership is about using your strengths and talents to help and lead others.
Photos used under Creative Commons from wuestenigel, Jonatan Svensson Glad (Josve05a)