The Student Leadership Initiative (SLI) at Dallas College teaches students how to be leaders and prepares them to work in professional settings in their futures.
There are three courses in the series, which are non-credit and free of charge to Dallas College students. The first class is “Being a Student Leader,” the second is “Entrepreneurship and Leadership” and the third is “Philanthropy in Motion.”
Each year, the “Philanthropy in Motion” part of the program partners with a local nonprofit organization and creates an event for the public. The latest project was an event at the Garland Animal Shelter on April 11.
“The event was called ‘Scoop! There it is!,’” said Antonio Soresh, student engagement coordinator at North Lake Campus. “We had about eight different adoptions that day, which is three more than what happened last semester in the fall.”
The event was created by the students, who developed the idea from the ground up. They created a marketing plan, ran the event and encouraged visitors to interact during the event. The students handed out dog toys and “poop” bags and explained the importance of picking up your dog’s excrement when out walking.
The students escorted families through the shelter and introduced them to dogs and cats that needed new homes.
“I really loved the intentionality. I really loved how the students asked questions [of] the families, making them feel comfortable being there, or relating with them,” said Soresh.
The event was created in collaboration with the Garland Animal Shelter as part of the SLI classes that are available at North Lake Campus. The event helped these students to put the things they had learned in the class into practice.
“It wasn’t just education on poop and getting people to adopt,” Soresh said. “It was about giving these students an opportunity to make an event like this with a nonprofit and make the marketing behind it.”
Soresh said SLI is “in the business of creating opportunity and leadership development.” New partnerships are in the works for fall.
“This year it was the Garland Animal Shelter, next year it could be the same or it could be a different group,” he said.
The program is designed to put students in touch with nonprofit business leaders to gain insight into how their businesses operate so students can perhaps one day start their own company.
The hope for “Being a Student Leader” is that it will eventually be a course that all Dallas College students take.
It’s a way for students to learn about building their own brand, learning how to market themselves and network with business leaders outside the Dallas College sphere.
“This is a leg up [for] them, learning about marketing, personal branding, how to make flyers, how to work with a team, how to communicate a vision, writing a proposal and then seeing it through the day of,” said Soresh.
All three of these SLI classes are available during the fall 2026 semester. Students can sign up for them without any prerequisite courses required and regardless of what their major is or what other classes they are taking.
Students will receive a certificate upon completion of the program.
