{"id":8819,"date":"2020-06-01T00:14:48","date_gmt":"2020-06-01T00:14:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2020\/06\/10\/award-focuses-on-whats-strong-not-whats-wrong\/"},"modified":"2022-09-07T15:33:33","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T19:33:33","slug":"award-focuses-on-whats-strong-not-whats-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/award-focuses-on-whats-strong-not-whats-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"Furman wins national Don Clifton Strengths for Students Award"},"content":{"rendered":"

Furman\u2019s Kim Keefer relied on tenacity and grit to complete a grueling two-week Outward Bound excursion in Colorado during her grad school years. Now she\u2019s using those same traits to help students at Furman University live their best lives.<\/p>\n

\"Portrait<\/a>

Kim Keefer, director of the Shucker Center for Leadership Development.<\/p><\/div>\n

In 2011, Keefer, director of Furman\u2019s Shucker Center for Leadership Development<\/a>, ignited a grassroots effort to bring CliftonStrengths to campus \u2013 a Gallup Inc. program that identifies and hones individuals\u2019 unique talents and encourages students to apply their strengths in school and beyond.<\/p>\n

She describes the early years as \u201cdabbling\u201d in strengths development, all the while planting seeds and securing buy-in across the campus.<\/p>\n

Now the program boasts eight certified coaches and 20 strengths champions, it permeates nearly every aspect of student engagement on campus and Furman recently won one of five 2020 Don Clifton Strengths for Students Awards<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, seeing the person-to-person impact this program has is why I do the work I do. To help students understand themselves, how they are wired, what their natural talents and abilities are, and then empower them to aim those strengths in a strategic way; that\u2019s a powerful legacy we can leave our students,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

At the core of the program is the CliftonStrengths assessment, named for the late Gallup chairman and \u201cfather of strengths-based psychology\u201d Don Clifton. The assessment analyzes 34 talent themes and descriptors such as \u201cactivator,\u201d \u201cachiever,\u201d \u201ccommunication\u201d and \u201crelator.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gallup\u2019s Tom Matson nominated Furman. He says schools that really hit the mark are the ones where Clifton Strengths are involved in five universal, interconnected elements: social, career\/purpose, financial, physical, and community.<\/p>\n

For instance, students who want to get connected on campus are tapping into their sense of community, becoming part of something bigger than themselves. \u201cSo, Kim and her team will sit down with a student and say, \u2018Here are your strengths \u2013 let\u2019s figure out how we can apply those toward your involvement here on campus.\u2019 That\u2019s an amazing gift to a student because we want them to be uniquely connected,\u201d Matson said.<\/p>\n

At the very best schools, Matson says, \u201cYou\u2019re seeing these really intentional, methodical conversations about strengths flow throughout campus \u2013 that\u2019s best practice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those conversations don\u2019t happen without the right people in place. \u201cFurman has a real champion in Kim \u2013 someone who is passionate about the conversations but is also adept at assembling the right people,\u201d Matson says.<\/p>\n

Keefer isn\u2019t finished developing the program on campus. \u201cMy dream is to have a certified strengths coach in every academic department so students can experience the connection of their natural talents to their majors and career paths,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The award is recognition of \u201cwhat tenacity in pursuit of something looks like,\u201d Keefer says. \u201cI\u2019m excited for Furman and our commitment to helping students understand who they really are, where they are at their very best, everything they bring to the table. That uniqueness is empowering individually, and even more so when it is leveraged to inspire others.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Furman\u2019s Kim Keefer relied on tenacity and grit to complete a grueling two-week Outward Bound excursion in Colorado during her grad school years. Now she\u2019s using those same traits to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":257,"featured_media":18607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,88,81,68,5,13],"tags":[309,310,311,312],"class_list":["post-8819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-administrative","category-cothran-center-for-vocational-reflection","category-innovation-and-entrepreneurship","category-shucker-leadership-institute","category-top-four-news-1st-story","category-top-four-news-4th-story","tag-clifton-strengths","tag-cliftonstrengths","tag-gallup","tag-shucker-center"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/257"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}