An 10 Minute Read, By Anthony (Tony) J. D’Angelo, founder of Collegiate Empowerment Posted June 12, 2020
If we look at the pattern of the history of Higher Education, an exciting truth presents itself: the next 20 years are going to be radically different from the last 20 years. We get to be a part of that transformation. This is why Collegiate Empowerment is offering our Coaching Program so we can further the mission of helping you, the Higher Ed Pro.
As you do this work, you may not always feel your best. That’s likely because most professionals in Higher Education feel overworked and overwhelmed, yet underpaid and underappreciated. The world is transforming, but we're not transforming. That's why Collegiate Empowerment is at the forefront of introducing Empowerment Education to individuals in this industry. Empowerment Education is so important today for one simple reason: content is everywhere. It's pervasive. It's overwhelming. Getting knowledge is like drinking out of a fire hydrant! With Empowerment Education, we don’t keep dumping stuff into our brains and the brains of our students. We draw deeper truths and enlightenment out. It is not about more and more content. It is about context. That is one of the great game changers in the 21st century. In the previous article, we examined the question, “What is Empowerment Education?” Empowerment Ed is all about: Helping People Get What They Want & Need, So They Can Get To Where They Want To Go. Now we’re going to take a deeper dive into the 10 foundational elements of Empowerment Education. We call them The 10 C’s.
1) Creator
Picture a blank piece of paper. At the center of that blank paper, imagine the word, “Creator”. This is where Empowerment Education all starts. It all starts with understanding that we are not victims or survivors. Now that’s not to say that we or our students haven’t been victims or survivors of difficult things. We all have been survivors at some point. But this is about mindset. We’re not looking at the people as victims, or consumers, or even students. We need to look at any individual we work with as a Creator and an aspirant; somebody who aspires to create a future that's bigger than their past. When we’re stuck in a victim mindset, we’re passive, helpless, and focused on the past. When we choose to be in a Creator mindset we’re active, inspired, and future-focused. At CE we are unapologetically ambitious Creators.
2) Commitment
You start with the Creator. The Creator brings out the “what” and the “where”; “What do I want?” and “Where do I want to go?” Then, you need to make a commitment to what you want and the direction you’re going. You make a decision. This is the next step of Empowerment Education. Most victims can't make commitments because they're immobilized by how life has happened to them. Creators make a commitment to make life happen for them.
3) Courage
To truly pursue what you want and where you want to go takes a massive amount of courage. We then deal with the big “F” word. The big “F” word between commitment and courage is: FEAR. Because courage comes from the heart (from the Latin: cor, meaning “heart”), we're not going to worry about the head on this journey. The Academy is going to worry about the head. They’ll beat you over the head with classes, GPA, and degrees. At CE we’re going to make sure people get an education, not just a degree. If you only attend to the matters of the head, but not the heart, people die by the time they're 27 but aren’t buried until they're 77. Because they didn't have the courage, the encouragement to take action on what they wanted. We have to go from commitment to courage to follow the passions of our heart.
4) Confidence
Once you start to have courage, you get to a new level of confidence. The word “confidence” comes from the Latin “con fido”, “with faith”. When we live with confidence, we live with belief in ourselves and in our vision. We live with faith, which enables us to take action.
5) Capability
The more confidence you possess to take action, the sooner you acquire more capability. This is what Empowerment Education is all about. It is not having about one skill and then perfecting that one skill for your lifetime. It is constantly evaluating, “What does the world want and need from me?”, “Where's the economic opportunity for me right now?”, and “What capabilities do I need now that I didn't have before?” This is where the Empowerment Education model is so critical. What we're doing is we're increasing and diversifying people's individual capabilities. When you increase a person's capability, you are not giving them a fish, but teaching them how to fish. You are empowering them to become the change they want to see in the world.
6) Coach
We do know this: you can't go on this journey alone. That's another difference between Empowerment Education from Academic Education or Professional Education. Empowerment Education is a team sport. But unfortunately, if we collaborate in the classroom, we call that “cheating”. But we need a coach. A coach is a guide on the side, somebody who surrounds an individual and pours into that Creator. That's the new model we’re creating here at CE. There are going to be new levels of competencies that will be required to play this game in the 21st century. And one of those competencies, one of those skill sets, one of those certifications, will be becoming a Collegiate Empowerment Coach, a Collegiate Empowerment Professional. When you are on the receiving end of that coaching, you are being empowered and inspired. Then, you can go on and share the tools and concepts you’ve learned and coach someone else. That’s the beauty of empowerment: it is incalculably exponential.
7) Curriculum
As you become a coach, it’s important to note that even if you understand the content, you may not yet know how to put it into context. This is why you need a curriculum. Every great game has a playbook. At Collegiate Empowerment, our curriculum is the Collegiate Empowerment Coaching Program. It is a coaching curriculum consisting of all kinds of tools and concepts. We have already pressed 48 different concepts and tools. The tools are packaged and available for anybody to teach somebody else. If you are a coach who doesn’t have a curriculum or you only have one certification, that's not enough. It's a start, but if you're going to play this game of American Higher Education for the long haul, you need a much richer curriculum to nourish your own creative spirit and those of the students you serve.
8) Companion
Companionship goes back to the idea of collaboration. The word “companion” refers to somebody we break bread with. It's somebody we have a regular interaction with either weekly, monthly, or quarterly. That's the unique facet here. You need someone you can see yourself collaborating with long-term. That person can be a co-worker, a friend, or a spouse. Whoever that companion is, they need to be a support system, an accountability partner, a mind you can bounce ideas off of, and a future-focused individual like yourself.
9) Community
Community is about a shared mission and a “common unity” toward that mission. A community, however, is not a family. We’re very particular about that word at CE. Family means familiar. And when we get too familiar, we get a little dysfunctional. A community can’t afford to be dysfunctional as it comes together on purpose to serve a higher goal. “Family drama” stays at home. There is no time for theatrics in a community. There’s too much work to be done.
10) Culture
Culture comes from the word “cultivate”. As we seek to transform a culture, we cultivate the ground. We plant new seeds for humanity. To paraphrase Thoreau, “Whenever you're trying to solve a problem, most people merely hack the leaves. Very few people dig at the roots.” With knowledge and empowerment, we not only dig at the root, we also plant new seeds, seeds of empowerment for success in the 21st century.
Cultivate the Soil
And that's what we do here at Collegiate Empowerment. What we ultimately do is we empower the gardener in you, the American Higher Education Professional, to cultivate the soil. Through the 10 C”s of Empowerment Education, you can be a part of the ever-changing industry of 21st century Higher Education. By embracing the Creator in you, acting in faith, and working through community, you will be a participant in the exciting work of the transformation of a culture.
You are an important link in the chain of the explosive, exponential impact of Empowerment Education.
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Anthony (Tony) J. D’Angelo, is founder & Chief Visionary Officer of Collegiate Empowerment, a educational production company dedicated to serving the US Higher Education Industry. Since 1995, Tony has served as a coach and strategic consultant to thousands of Higher Education Professionals and University Executives from over 2,500 US colleges. Learn more @ www.Collegiate-Empowerment.org or Follow: @TonyDAngelo on Twitter.
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