Kelly Smith, a Notre Dame graduate with a degree in English, talks about how she applies her writing skills to her daily job and what it’s like to run a team in the Fellowship. Kelly is a second year Fellow and works at Sigstr, an email signature marketing company, and she is also a member of the Fellowship Leadership Team (FLT).
To provide more context to my interview with Kelly, Fellows have opportunities to contribute to Orr Fellowship’s continued growth while learning essential skills as they recruit the next class of Fellows in addition to owning initiatives, planning events, and stepping into leadership roles. Orr Fellowship is a two-year, post-grad program, so every year we recruit college seniors to be the new class of Fellows. This means that there are only two classes at any one time, and this is where the term 1st year or 2nd year comes in, depending on which year of your fellowship you are in. With each new class there also comes a new leadership team. While we all participate in Orr and keep it running, much like a business, we do have a board of directors and two full-time employees, but we also have a formal leadership team to oversee different departments. For Orr, this is called FLT, or Fellowship Leadership Team. We have Chief of Staff, Director of Recruitment, Director of Finance, Director of Curriculum, Director of Civic, Director of Fellowship and Alumni Engagement, Director of Marketing, and Director of IT. First years have the opportunity to get plugged in and be on teams, while second years run FLT. In order to fill these positions each year, we host elections. Any 1st year can run for a role, and on election day they present their platform, answer questions, and the rest of Orr Fellowship formally votes in the next director for each position.
Check out our podcast with Kelly here:
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