The Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies’ Wheelhouse Talks series is returning to Grand Valley State University. The series was created to give mentors the opportunity to share advice on how to be a leader in the workplace. For this upcoming talk, the owner and operator of Born Preventive Health Care Clinic, Tammy Born, will speak Friday, Feb. 23, at the L.V. Eberhard Center on GVSU’s Pew Campus.

Born studied osteopathic medicine, which is the treatment of medical disorders through the manipulation of bones, joints and muscles. She will be hosting her “Leadership and Medicine” discussion starting at 4 p.m. As the title of the event suggests, Born will go into detail about attitudes she has carried with herself as a leader during her career in medicine. 

“Our Wheelhouse Talks series is dedicated to bringing in community leadership and to help provide a visioning process for students,” said Chadd Dowding, senior program manager for the Peter C. Cook Leadership Academy (CLA) at the Hauenstein Center.

Dowding said the discussion with Born will be formatted as an open conversation. Students will be able to ask Born questions about her career, experiences, what she has learned and more. Born was asked to speak because of her successful career as well as the leadership qualities she has displayed in the medical field.

Dowding said a good leader has emotional intelligence. Being empathetic, listening deeply and seeking understanding are some of the ways students can be effective leaders. Dowding hopes students will gain a vision of the sort of dedication that goes into being a good leader after attending this Wheelhouse Talk. 

“For us it’s important that students walk out of the university with an additional set of skills to achieve their long-term dreams and ambitions,” he said.

Noah Vaitkevicius, biochemistry student at GVSU, expressed his excitement about Born’s upcoming discussion. He believes the medical field is one of the hardest fields someone can study and that it is even harder to be a leader in this field. 

“As a rugby player, we always are talking about leadership,” Vaitkevicius said. “It’s something that is easy to talk about but difficult to put into actions.”

Dowding is putting on this Wheelhouse Talk in part for the CLA. There, students who are doing well at GVSU are chosen to transition their achievements into long-term success. He said the CLA helps students develop leadership skills, professional skills (such as public speaking) and a good mentality for the workplace to help them in the future. 

The CLA assigns community mentors to be paired up with CLA students. The Wheelhouse Talks are an extension of this. Students are able to hear from a plethora of speakers from an array of backgrounds. Students can then learn about leadership from these new angles, Dowding said. 

For more information about upcoming and future Wheelhouse Talks and the CLA, visit http://hauensteincenter.org/wheelhouse/.