Madonna Coleman is a senior psychology major, who is also minoring in military science and sociology. Beyond her role as a student, Coleman is also the vice president of the National Association of Colored Women’s Club, Inc. (NACWC) and the secretary of her sorority, Sigma Gamma Rho, Inc. Coleman values the community these organizations provide and the service they do for ISU and the community at large. About the NACWC, she says, “The main focus is to provide a safe space on campus for people, to encourage students to get together, and to be educated on and provided with community resources.”
Coleman has also been a member of ROTC since her freshman year, a program that prepares students to be commissioned as officers in the military upon graduation. Through ROTC, she has been able to learn a lot about leadership through tangible, hands-on experiences. She noted that she started off small and gradually added more responsibility as time went on, moving from recruitment to learning how to plan and delegate missions. She said that being involved in ROTC, a program that requires a substantial time commitment, taught her valuable time management, multitasking, and communication skills.
Time management and self-care are very important to Coleman, who has designed her senior capstone project around researching those topics. Between her course load, ROTC, multiple RSOs, and working a part-time job, she had a lot of responsibilities to juggle and learned the importance of finding the right balance in her schedule. Coleman is passionate about the world of industrial/organizational psychology and learning more about work/life balance. During her time volunteering for PATH, a local crisis agency, she saw the effect stress and burnout could have on people.
“Long-term, nobody wants to reach that point of burn-out,” she said. “Many people don’t have enough free time to think about themselves.”
Her research will involve collecting information from students in her class on the number of hours spent on other commitments (RSOs, work, hobbies, etc.) and the amount of time they can devote to their course work. This information will be compared to students’ grades to determine any relation between the two.
“I understand the effect that having that much on your plate can take away from your studies,” she said.
Coleman, who is in her last semester at ISU, hopes to take her research findings with her into the future, whether it’s in the military or a psychology-related field. She is an exemplary individual and we are proud to feature her in our Student Spotlight!
For more information about ROTC, go to ISU’s ROTC program webpage.
The Multicultural Outreach Team (MCOT) is a part of Student Counseling Services whose mission is to foster a healthy, diverse, and equitable university community for underrepresented students. MCOT is seeking nominations for a new program in which we spotlight the achievements of diverse students on campus in a news story for our social media. If you know of a student who deserves to be featured, please submit this form.
