Center Spotlight: Joshua Baerwald

FSU student, Joshua Baerwald

 

 Joshua Baerwald

 Age: 21

 Hometown: Milwaukee, Wisconsin

 Major: Music Composition

For senior Joshua Baerwald, his leadership experiences have not only changed him, but have made him.

As an active participant in center programs including Service Leadership Seminar, LOGIC, LeaderShape and others, Baerwald subscribes to creating positive, sustainable change in the one’s community while inspiring others to do the same.

Baerwald was introduced to the Center for Leadership & Social Change through Service Leadership Seminar, a weeklong program for incoming freshmen during the last week of summer break.

“It was a great way to meet people from different backgrounds and opened my eyes to new experiences,” he said. “It helped me get a firm establishment and understanding of what I should expect and want out of college.”

Like many incoming freshmen, Baerwald viewed campus programs as opportunities to tick off on a growing participation list. But as he became more involved, it became less about developing a resume and more about developing the self.

“Participating in SLS so that you can say you participated in SLS is a one-time label experience, but if it changes who you are, that’s a lifetime experience, and I think I’ve placed a lot more on that lifetime experience than I have on that one-time label,” he said.

As a coordinator for Leadership LOGIC, an overnight leadership development program, Baerwald believes it’s a great opportunity for those who don’t know much about the center to get a trial run.

“LOGIC is like a smaller scale SLS, and I think a lot of the people who don’t know much about the center and what we do would benefit if they learned more,” he said.

The LeaderShape experience has also played a large role in Baerwald’s life, encouraging him to think about leadership in contexts he wouldn’t normally, not only in a career or organization that he is in, but also how it plays in his personal life.

Center programs have helped to further Baerwald’s appreciation of leadership and transformation within himself.

“I have gained an understanding of the value of diverse opinions and what leadership means to me along with others, how that plays a role in furthering our progress as a community, and how different identities can play a role in the life you live and the life you experience,” he said.

Baerwald continues, “I recognize some of the privileges that have been afforded to me because of various identities that I have and it’s really helped me think about how I can help provide experiences and opportunities for people who may not have those otherwise.”

As a music composition major, Baerwald hopes to take the values learned from the center and try to figure out how to intersect his love for the arts with who he is.

“I want to embody art in my life just like I embody life in my art and relate social issues and social change to art,” he said. “I think one of the powerful things about music is the way that it encourages people to think about things in a different way and how it encourages people to go out and find new input.”

—Fabuola Pierre