The Multicultural Leadership Scholars (MLS) program has taught me a diverse range of leadership styles. Going into LEAD 4000, I truly felt as though I was prepared to dive deeper into the praxis of leadership. The organization that I shadowed this semester was the NAACP Boulder Chapter. Our group got to work closely with the Prison Reform committee within the NAACP Boulder Chapter. This semester looked a little different for our shadowing group, as we also had the opportunity to attend community led events that were about prison reform.  

 

Working with the NAACP perfectly correlated to what I had learned this semester in LEAD 4000. In order to put into praxis what we were learning with different leadership theories, my classmates and I were working on our own wicked problems as well. I worked with a few of my classmates tackling why prison reform is a wicked problem, especially within the United States. Our group had to unique opportunity to see how organizations like the NAACP are doing in order to further work on the issue of prison reform, how they work with the community, and what the community itself is doing to serve those within the prison system and their loved ones. 

 

Gauging the wickedness of prison reform in the United States, it shed light on my career path. Growing up as a first-generation Mexican-American, I have grown up witnessing the difficulties in life of those who are undocumented. Experiencing the effects of the immigration system and how it connects with the prison system (crimmigration) has led me to want to pursue the law as my career path. In the near future, I hope to not only be a practicing attorney with a legal clinic who gives back to my community. I would like to put into praxis what I have learned in the MLS minor and go into policy change in order to change the law on immigration/crimmigration in order to even better serve my community.