Imagine where your leadership could take you
If you join the Outstanding Scholars program at the University of Windsor, you won’t just attend leadership workshops. You could present your ideas in front of peers, compete in leadership conferences, build confidence as a public speaker, mentor other students, and connect your academic interests to real research, real projects, and real campus impact.
Outstanding Scholars is designed for students who want more from university: more challenge, more opportunity, and more ways to grow as a leader, researcher, and communicator.
Build leadership skills that go beyond the classroom
Picture yourself stepping up to the microphone, presenting your ideas with confidence, and representing your work at a major student event. As an Outstanding Scholar, you can take part in leadership programming that helps you strengthen your voice, develop professional confidence, and prepare for the kinds of challenges high-achieving students often seek out.
Your leadership journey can grow across three themes:
- Leadership & You — discover your strengths, values, and leadership style
- Organizational and Group Leadership — learn how to lead teams, projects, and student initiatives
- International Leadership — explore leadership in a global context through big questions and real-world challenges
Throughout the year, you may have the chance to participate in leadership workshops, conference activities, presentation opportunities, and simulations that help you move from potential to practice. Details are shared during Outstanding Scholars Orientation, held on the first Saturday after Labour Day each year.
Want to become the kind of student who can lead a team, present with confidence, and contribute meaningfully to campus life? This is where that development begins.
Present your ideas. Share your work. Stand out.
As an Outstanding Scholar, you could take part in events like the Lancer Leadership Conference and UWill Discover. These experiences give students the opportunity to lead activities, sharpen presentation skills, participate in simulations, and share their work with peers, faculty, and campus partners.
For many students, these are the moments when university starts to feel bigger: your ideas become public, your confidence becomes visible, and your learning becomes something you can actually show.
What could leadership look like for you?
Maybe your path looks like Abby Scott’s. As a Lancer women’s volleyball athlete and student in Sport Management and Leadership, Abby brought together varsity athletics, academic excellence, and undergraduate research in a way that reflects what the Outstanding Scholars program can make possible.
Her story shows that leadership does not develop in just one place. It can grow in competition, in the classroom, in research, and on the conference stage. If you are the kind of student who wants to connect multiple strengths into one bigger story, Outstanding Scholars can help you do that.
Abby’s journey was featured in UWindsor Campus News for combining varsity athletics with research and academic leadership.
Read the story →Lead with purpose
Outstanding Scholars leadership programming is grounded in human development and informed by the Human Development and Capability Approach. Students also engage with ideas drawn from the International Leadership Association, the World Economic Forum, and other major leadership and research conversations. In other words, you won’t just be asked to participate. You will be challenged to think deeply about what leadership is, why it matters, and how you want to practice it.
Shape the student experience through the Outstanding Scholars Student Council
Do you want to help shape the program's direction? The Outstanding Scholars Student Council (OSSC) gives students a direct voice in program life. Elections are typically held in March for most positions, with additional opportunities in September for first- and second-year representatives.
If you want leadership experience that is visible, meaningful, and connected to a high-achieving student community, the OSSC is an excellent start.
Support the next cohort through peer mentoring
Leadership is not only about speaking up. It is also about helping others rise. The Outstanding Scholars Peer Mentor Program gives students the opportunity to support incoming first-year Candidates as they transition into university life.
As a peer mentor, you can help build community, support student success, and show new Outstanding Scholar Candidates what is possible when talented students challenge themselves early.
See what you could become here
Imagine graduating not only with strong grades, but with conference experience, presentation skills, leadership training, mentoring experience, and a record of meaningful involvement in one of the University of Windsor’s most distinctive student opportunity programs.
That is the kind of experience Outstanding Scholars is built to support.
To learn more about leadership development in Outstanding Scholars, contact Dr. Tim Brunet at tbrunet@uwindsor.ca.