Overviewing the IMSA High-Commitment Positions with Student Life

Mrs. Emma Wilson is the Student Leadership and Service Coordinator and oversees several high-commitment positions across various student life organizations. Last year, the high-commitment role was given to some student life positions, which limited the students in those roles to only one presidential position in clubs. Across all of the IMSA positions discussed in this interview, Mrs. Emma Wilson makes one aspect crystal clear: “All in all there’s a lot of responsibility and if people hold more than one of these positions, they get stretched thin, and that’s why we put [these limits] in place last year.” In this interview, Mr. Rodrigo Sanchez also provides valuable information about CCE’s high-commitment positions that he manages. Here is the overview of each high-commitment position and their most time-consuming responsibilities in the view of their managers:

Student Council: President (1), VP (1), CAB Director (1)  

On student council, these three positions run several of the largest events at IMSA for students, inviting speakers from alumni to inspiring school staff, and leading StudCo as a whole. The President and Vice President are responsible for facilitating the club chartering and have several meetings with administrators, updating the Board of Trustees documents. They also manage Convocation and Graduation. CAB Director is a campus-oriented position that oversees Clash of the Halls, Homecoming, the Carnival, and 12 Days of CAB, along with several other exciting events. All of the StudCo high-commitment positions are solely a part of student affairs and DEI.

Council for Campus Equity: Co-Presidents (2)

Mr. Sanchez explains how the Co-Presidents act as a direct link between him, DEI, CCE members, and organizations for culture and identity. They also lead most CCE initiatives, which could be anywhere from two major projects to several minor projects per year, all designed to promote equity and celebrate personal and cultural identity. Lastly, the Co-Presidents oversee all DEI-related clubs and organizations, making for a highly time-consuming but rewarding position. 

LEAD: Co-Coordinators (2), Co-Chairs (6) 

Mrs. Wilson explained the importance of these roles in LEAD and their reasoning for receiving the high-commitment title. The co-chairs are in charge of the LEAD facilitators, and manage each lead elective (SocEnt, IMPACT, and EnAct), creating a semester’s worth of curriculum. In particular, Mrs. Wilson also insists that the LEAD Co-Chairs be highly flexible to put their 100% into their position. The LEAD Co-Coordinators plan the Wednesday modules, oversee the SLX presentations, and they have a role in hiring for RSL, HCL, and other hall-resident related positions. 

Class Club (JCC and SCC): SCC Pres (1), JCC Pres (1)

Primarily, the class club presidents manage financing for Prom through several fundraising events such as Senior Auction. The high-commitment role was given to these roles for their challenging job of fundraising and managing several class events.

Housing: Hall Community Leaders (HCL) (7) 

HCL is the final high-commitment leadership position, given to one student for each hall. As an HCL, there are several commitments to lead the hall in every element. HCLs also are in charge of managing the RSLs. With several responsibilities managing all the wings in a hall and working closely with RCs, this position will certainly consume a large amount of students’ time, allowing them to dedicate time and resources toward bettering their residential community.

A final note that Mrs. Emma Wilson wanted to add was the feedback from last year, as this was first introduced in the 2022-23 school year and was intended to limit repetitive leaders for some of these higher positions. Sometimes IMSA can turn out to have bias for popular students when it comes to selecting these positions, and this addition was designed to equalize leadership opportunities further. One prominent loophole to the new system that the student life office noticed was the use of co-president positions to bypass the high-commitment rules, as the original high-commitment rules stated only presidential positions, which ultimately was a detriment to the student’s performance in these high-commitment positions as a result of over-committing. The Student Life Office believes that while the high-commitment rule is rigid, they have made exceptions depending on the student’s performance throughout the year, so rather than finding loopholes, the strongest approach for a student who believes they are capable of maintaining several presidential roles with a high-commitment position is to demonstrate one’s ability to handle further commitments.