2006 MFCNS Excellence in Leadership Essay
By Kevin Hwang

            As described in my essay last year this same time, The Triple Helix (http://www.thetriplehelix.org) was just beginning its national expansion into the University of California at Berkeley and University of Pennsylvania. My goal at the time was to lead the publication and organization I founded into universities around the country, bringing together students from around the United States in a dialogue on some of the most important social, ethical, legal, and political issues surrounding science and technology. Much has changed and one year later today, The Triple Helix has become the world’s largest completely student-run non-profit organization and publication with over 500 students and 21 universities involved in 4 continents around the world. It has been an incredible learning experience for me, and my leadership abilities have developed enormously over the past year.
            The Triple Helix: The International Journal of Science, Society, and Law was originally founded at Cornell University in October 2004. After extremely high levels of success here at Cornell with incredible amounts of student interest and faculty/administrative support, I decided to make an attempt at bringing the publication I founded to top universities around the country in the hopes of building a national network of like-minded students who would analyze scientific issues through an interdisciplinary lens. The goal was to cultivate future scientific leaders and thinkers who will need to address legal, social, political, and ethical issues surrounding science in the 21st century. My vision at the time was to operate on a chapter-based system with a national board who would govern and coordinate the different chapters around the country. Today, one year later, that vision has become a reality, and the organization has gone beyond the borders of the United States in the hopes of bringing in perspectives from around the globe. 14 chapters exist and 7 more are being rapidly built, each of which publishes their own edition of the publication with a pool of shared articles selected from all chapters.
            In April 2005, when I wrote this essay last year, The Triple Helix consisted of less than 100 students and was just beginning to expand into two other universities outside of Cornell in the United States. I spent the month of May 2005, as well as the entire summer, in part talking to students and faculty at other prestigious universities around the country in order to build interest and to bring The Triple Helix to their campuses. In May alone, four new universities joined, and over the summer, a few more joined as well. As students from each university began to form their own chapters, I guided each of them step-by-step through the founding process to ensure each chapter’s success. Over the summer, I successfully filed our incorporation documents with the New York Department of State and New York Department of Education as well as our 501(c)3 non-profit application forms with the IRS, all completed without assistance from an attorney. Even during the summer, I continued to hold meetings with the Board of Directors, the National Editorial Board, and the Production Division to plan for the following academic year and determine the future goals of the organization.
During the Fall 2005 semester, momentum began to build as word of The Triple Helix spread and students from non-chapter universities began to contact us about starting chapters. In anticipation of a large and rapid upcoming growth in the organization, I worked with another student member of the Board of Directors from Johns Hopkins University to devise a system for successfully managing a large number chapters while also giving each member chapter personal attention and guidance. In short, the system consisted of a variety of tools to make managing a larger number of chapters more efficient: facilitated regional chapter meetings, standardized responses to weekly reports, a rewards program to provide incentives for chapters to succeed, universally accessible presentations and guides on how to run a successful chapter, and much more. During this time period, I also continued to work closely with our literary division to make sure they had a system in place to manage a large number of chapter publications while ensuring the quality of every edition of the journal. Because our layout, design, and production is centralized, I helped the production division develop a “Best Known Methods” system where any individual can submit a step-by-step method for completing any task in the production department. Individuals can edit this guide, and with enough revisions, hopefully every process within the production department will have a “best known method” for completing it. The goal is to increase efficiency and to pass knowledge to others quickly without having to reinvent the wheel every time. I also began to develop strategies for fundraising in conjunction with our business development division, including advertising, subscriptions, private and corporate donations, and more. By the end of the Fall 2005 semester, The Triple Helix successfully released over 3,000 issues on the campuses of Cornell, University of Pennsylvania, and UC Berkeley and had chapters throughout the entire Ivy League and peer universities such as MIT, Johns Hopkins, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and more.
Over this past winter break, I revised our business plan by developing a plan for bringing The Triple Helix to universities outside of the United States. The proposal was perhaps not as bold as the original proposal to expand the organization from Cornell to other universities around the world, but it was nonetheless a major shift in the direction of the organization and it was similarly historically unprecedented. I held a series of meetings with chapter presidents and other national board members, and we finally came to a conclusion to freeze expansion within the United States and to put our resources into expanding globally. Because the organization and the publication is entirely produced by students, human resources was the largest constraint in terms of the number of chapters we could accommodate. Unfortunately, because of this new policy, The Triple Helix was forced to turn down students from 8 different universities in the United States who requested to start a chapter.
            Today, The Triple Helix has 16 chapters in the United States, including the entire Ivy League, as well as 5 chapters abroad. The 5 chapters abroad include Cambridge, Oxford, Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur, National University of Singapore, and Melbourne University. These international chapters were chosen strategically with the eventual goal of branching out from these regionally influential universities to nearby schools. Within the next 1-2 years, I envision a network of Triple Helix chapters in Europe, Asia, and Australia that parallels the student network here in the United States. I am currently working with a few other student leaders on bringing The Triple Helix into the top universities in China, but that has proven to be difficult due to media censorship concerns. However, we have begun a dialogue with administrators at Beijing University and Tsinghua University via several student liaisons and hopefully one day in the near future, we will be able to tap into a student network within China.
            The enormous growth of The Triple Helix in the past year is representative of my continued growth and development as a leader. Through leading various workshops and doing a variety of leadership presentations for leaders in The Triple Helix, I have had the opportunity to organize and reflect on some of the many things I have learned about effective leadership. Because of my experiences with The Triple Helix, I was able to conduct a presentation and lead a discussion on effective leadership at the 2006 Student Leadership Institute at Cornell. In addition, I am working on writing a manuscript that will hopefully be published and turned into a book called “Entrepreneurship and Management for the Effective Student Leader”.
            Because The Triple Helix involves students from around the world who are not present in one location, I have learned an enormous amount about effective communication as a leader. A significant portion of our problems normally stems from miscommunication. To facilitate better and frequent communication, I have set up a discussion forum online to allow chapters to discuss issues with one another. To create a flow of information from bottom to top in the organization, I have implemented a weekly reporting system so that almost every staff member submits a bullet list report on their week’s activities to their department head, and each department head will pass along the major highlights of their division as well as their own accomplishments for the week to their respective “managers”. To create a flow of information from top to bottom as well, I ask that every member of the Board of Directors create a “Vision, Objectives, and Execution” (VOE) statement every 6 months. The VOE statement is a way for leaders to communicate their vision and objectives and plan for accomplishing them in written form, and I have found that it helps student leaders in particular organize their thoughts into a cohesive vision statement. These VOE statements are passed down to all staff in the organization. I have also set up a system for regular meetings for almost every division in the organization to make sure there is a mandatory forum for people to communicate.
            Perhaps the most challenging task that I have had to deal with is continuing to motivate student leaders to put forth many hours of their week into the organization. Members of the national Board, including myself, put in about 15-20 hours per week, and while the time commitment is lower depending on what position one holds, the time commitment is still significantly higher than that required for most student organizations. Through trial and error, I have learned about the need for positive and negative reinforcement and the importance of finding the proper balance.
            Teamwork and conflict resolution are other issues that I have had to deal with as a leader. Often times, the issues and projects we work on require student staff from various divisions to coordinate their efforts. One example is the planning of our upcoming two-day summer national conference in the Silicon Valley of California. The conference is a  huge project since The Triple Helix will be paying for all travel and accommodation expenses for over 30 students, and the two-day event needs to be planned carefully to make the best use of our face time with one another. The conference planning committee consists of students from our fundraising team, marketing team, literary team, and more. Conflicts have arisen in the past in such teams, and I have learned a great deal about resolving them to facilitate teamwork. Sometimes it only requires a facilitated discussion between members of the conflict; other times it unfortunately requires separating the individuals.
            One critical issue that I am currently addressing and will continue to ponder over for the next several months is the issue of sustainability. Because I and others in the class of 2007 will be graduating soon, this represents the first time that the highest leaders of The Triple Helix will leave the organization. What role the alumni will play and how the leadership transition occurs will set an important precedent for future generations of leaders within the organization. A smooth leadership transition will be critical for the long-term success of the organization. I am continually putting my knowledge and experience into written guides for all the members and leaders of The Triple Helix to read and pass on to future generations. I am also creating a training program to make sure that every new member of the national Board is fully prepared to take on this huge commitment as a full-time student. While I will be exiting the organization next year to give other students an opportunity at this once-in-a-lifetime entrepreneurial experience, I plan to stay involved as an advisor for many years to come. And I certainly plan to be involved to see the day when The Triple Helix has spread to multiple universities throughout every continent in the world.