Life of a Fellow: Michael Vecellio
We’ve always believed that our students are our greatest ambassadors — embodying 12 Plus’ work and mission. So why not make it official?
Last year at The LINC, students had the opportunity to become 12 Plus Ambassadors and develop a wide variety of skills while championing our work with their peers!
Meet Michael
Michael started as a Fellow at The LINC High School and is now joining the team at Saul High School as a College & Career Coordinator.
He is a graduate of Ithaca College, where he earned a B.S. in Sports Media while volunteering as the manager for the women’s varsity basketball team and playing on the men’s club basketball team. Michael enjoys sports, exploring nature, and is learning to play the guitar!
Piloting 12 Plus Ambassador Program
As a Fellow just starting with 12 Plus, I was fortunate to get a chance to work on a new initiative that my site director Elijah planned to implement this year: the 12 Plus Ambassador Program! Our goals at 12 Plus include reaching as many students as we can and helping them build the confidence and skills necessary to achieve their goals. The Ambassador Program helps us do that by giving students a chance to influence the programming and events we offer, spread the word amongst their peers about what 12 Plus can do for them, and develop and practice skills such as public speaking, organizing, creating, collaborating, and advocating. Most importantly, we had a lot of fun!
While our role as advisors necessitates focusing on the senior classes at our partner schools, The LINC’s smaller student population offers us a unique opportunity to work more closely with juniors and underclassmen as well. We decided to offer the opportunity to become Ambassadors to mainly juniors because we wanted the program to have continuity year to year while including students who could serve as role models for 9th and 10th graders. Out of our 14 Ambassadors this year, 13 were juniors, and all of them embraced the opportunity to work more closely with 12 Plus and get their classmates more involved in our info sessions, career day, trade fair, and field trips!
Preparing students for their postsecondary pathways and a successful career after high school entails helping them develop skills they will need in their personal and professional lives. Throughout the year, we held meetings with the Ambassadors where they were able to brainstorm and create design ideas for our 12 Plus bulletin board, learn about conducting interviews, practice public speaking, deliver announcements to seminars, and present at town halls (events where all seminars for a single grade level meet in the auditorium for important announcements and some fun activities). It was incredible to see the growth they displayed in their confidence and clarity from October to May, and even more rewarding to hear that they noticed their own improvements as well.
One moment that showed the ownership they took in representing 12 Plus occurred during a workshop we ran in December, just before winter break. Elijah and I designed and constructed a board game we call “Trajectory” that helps teach students about what it’s like to build a career. We introduced it to the Ambassadors first as a test run, which helped us fine tune the rules to make sure it went smoothly. When we visited a class to have students play the game, we had several groups starting and only two of us to explain and troubleshoot. Without prompting, the Ambassadors in the class joined the groups we hadn’t gotten to, taught them the rules, and got each group’s game up and running. Some of the students seemed a bit skeptical at first, but once they got into it they had a great time and were asking when they’d be able to play again!
Overall, the Ambassador Program’s first year was a resounding success. These students had tremendous levels of engagement with 12 Plus, got dozens of their peers to participate in 12 Plus trips and other voluntary events, developed new skills and confidence, and came together as a group to form close friendships and an amazing team. Creating leadership opportunities for students encourages responsibility and high expectations, and the Ambassadors exceeded any expectations we had for year one of the program. Seeing students who didn’t normally interact joke and laugh together during activities, take ownership of our workshops, and articulate how their experience as Ambassadors has helped them grow was extremely rewarding, and I’m very grateful to have been a part of making it happen.