LINK CREW
Link Crew interviews, hard or nah?BY ALEX BALLARD ON APRIL 17, 2014
For the past eleven years, Link Crew has been a club whose members strive to make the freshmen more comfortable when entering the new experience of high school. Throughout the existence of Link Crew, it has gone through many changes, with one of the most major ones occurring last year.
“We tried to lower our ratio of leader to freshman so it would be more one-on-one,” history teacher Amity Kea said. “But what we found is that the freshmen in larger groups didn’t feel as isolated and the overall group did better.” The advisors of Link Crew decided that it would be best to lower the amount of members and add to the application process. “We decided that we wanted our leaders to be the best leaders: the most outgoing, the most dedicated, those who are really motivated to get with their freshman,” Kea said. In past years, the Link Crew application has consisted of a written application and an interview, but this year an activity try out was added. Art teacher Randall Leach stated that they made the decision after he, Principal Monica Jacobson and English teacher Karen Medlin attended a Link Crew training event this past February. “The Boomerang Project (the group that sponsors Link Crew) decided that they wanted to go back to the basics of when they first founded Link Crew,” Leach said. “We’re having to go back and revamp how we’re doing it to because we got away from how it should be done.” Leach stated that they are also trying to get more Link Crew advisors trained. Student response was varied with some taking the changes as a challenge. “I was a little nervous,” sophomore Shelby Casey said. “I just knew that I would need to work harder.” Other students were accepting of the changes and welcomed them. “This year, a lot of people wore the title but didn’t spend a lot of time with their freshman,” junior Kiauna Phillips said. Still, more students saw the changes as helpful. “Now you get a better understanding of what to do and how to do it because of the training and tryouts,” sophomore Nick Ebron said. Leach also stated that they are trying to get more Link Crew advisors trained. “We’re getting more people who are actually trained to be advisors,” Leach said, “and that will help us out in tightening everything up.” In addition to being a Link Crew advisor here at Rose, Leach has now been trained through the Boomerang Project to go to other schools across the country and help teachers bring Link Crew to their schools. “My first one was in New York where I taught a three day workshop to teachers on how to bring Link Crew to their schools,” Leach said. In addition to the changes in size and application, Link Crew will be resuming events they had done in previous years, but skipped on this past year. “We’re hoping to do more events for the freshmen because we didn’t do as many this year,” Kea said. Events such as the tailgates will be returning next year, along with some new ones. “We have a couple of surprises planned for next year that we really think the freshmen will enjoy,” Kea said. Through reviewing this year’s Link Crew, Kea stated that she felt next year’s Link Crew will be very successful. “I’m looking forward to what next year’s Link Crew will be,” Kea said. |