Lady Vol Basketball Player Jewel Spear Gains Leadership Skills in Rwanda
When Lady Vol basketball player and School of Journalism and Media alumna Jewel Spear (`24) first learned about the Tennessee-Rwanda Leadership Experience, she knew almost instantly she wanted to take advantage of this program.
During a routine visit to meet with her academic advisor last year, Spear met with Senior Associate Athletics Director and Associate Provost Marshall Steward, who informed her she was nominated to participate in the Tennessee-Rwanda Leadership Experience.
Organized by the Division of Access and Engagement and the Thornton Athletics Student Life Center, the Tennessee-Rwanda Leadership Experience brings together twenty to twenty-five students to participate in a program focused on leadership, service, culture, and community.
As Spear prepares to return to the Lady Vols for her fifth year of eligibility on the team, and to pursue a master’s at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Steward said her selection to participate in this program over the summer was a “no brainer.”
“She’s been an integral member of our team on and off the court,” Steward said. “Whether you look at how she conducts herself in the classroom, or how she competes and lifts up her teammates, she is the pinnacle of a leader on our campus.”
As part of the Tennessee-Rwanda Leadership Experience, students gain leadership and team-building skills through formal and informal lectures, roundtable discussions, one-on-one coaching, workshops, and enterprise.
The highlight of the program is a ten-day trip to Rwanda where they engage in service learning and immerse themselves in Rwandan culture.
“It was an eye opening experience,” Spear said. “The biggest thing I took away from it is to be grateful for what you have and to understand the power of leadership and sport in addressing inequities and challenges in communities all over the world.”
Spear said one thing that stood out to her was how much Rwandans support each other and their love for community. She added, even though she and the other UT students were strangers, the Rwandans were very welcoming.
While in Rwanda, she worked with Bridge2Rwanda, a scholars program that helps prepare Rwandan high school graduates for a global education.
Spear recalls speaking with a Rwandan named Happy. He plans to attend Texas Christian University to expand his education. As a Texas native, Spear shared her knowledge about the area and school, adding his greatest concern was dealing with the culture shock of moving to America.
Students also worked with Shooting Touch Rwanda, an international sport-for-development organization using basketball to bridge health and opportunity gaps for youth and women. Spear helped teach Rwandans basketball as a way to encourage physical activity and wellness. The event was also a way to bring together various organizations to help provide needed services such as healthcare and women’s reproductive information to remote areas of the country.
Spear said visiting Rwanda definitely reinforced her desire to be active in the community more. Through the Lady Vols, Spear said they have become involved in different ways, such as working together as a team in July to help build a home for a local veteran.
However, the program showed her that she can, and should, get involved more.
“Because in a community, when you have multiple people working together, it makes everything so much more enjoyable,” Spear said.
The program also helped her learn more about what it means to be a leader as she prepares to compete for the Lady Vols women’s basketball team as a fifth-year senior. She said the program helped hone her leadership style and she hopes to put it into practice with her team.
Steward said preparing future leaders is at the core of the program. The Tennessee-Rwanda Leadership Experience started following a conversation with Vice Chancellor for Access and Engagement Tyvi Small.
He invited Small to join him and other student-athletes on a VoLeaders Academy trip to Rwanda. The academy focuses on cultivating positive student-athlete leaders using sport as a catalyst to create social change.
After that trip, Steward said there was a desire to have a program returning to Rwanda every year with a similar mission as VOLeaders to cultivate leaders, but to expand it beyond just student-athletes and include campus leaders from other groups like fraternities, sororities, and student organizations, in addition to athletics.
Thus the Tennessee-Rwanda Leadership Program was created with its first cohort in 2022. Steward said the hope is that students who participate in the program are fundamentally changed and would go on to be great servant-leaders on campus and in their communities beyond Rocky Top, especially student-athletes like Spear.
“We spend a lot of time helping our student-athletes understand that sport is what you do and not who you are,” Steward said. “The more they can get outside of the gym and the classroom and be around people, and engage in the community, whether that is Knoxville, East Tennessee, or even the global community, the better off we are.”
Spear said it was fun connecting with other students across campus through the program, and she found new friendships throughout the program.
Spear transferred from Wake Forest University in 2023 to compete for the Lady Vols. She said the basketball program was a huge draw for her coming to Tennessee, but was also compelled by the school’s sports broadcasting program and campus culture.
While her time at Tennessee so far has been shorter than others’ since she transferred, it has been an amazing period punctuated by experiences like the Tennessee-Rwanda Leadership Program. She is definitely a Vol for life.
“I am grateful for the experiences that I’ve had in the past year but also the experiences that I will have in the next year as I finish off my collegiate career,” Spear said.
Lady Vol Basketball Player Jewel Spear Gains Leadership Skills in Rwanda written by Ernest Rollins and originally published on the College of Communication & Information site.