Florida graduates two SAL college classes

During the 2010 Florida Sons of The American Legion fall conference, membership formally adopted a proposal to create the Detachment Member Training and Development Committee and to create the Florida SAL College course.

The purpose was to use some of the educational tools developed at National Headquarters, combine them with materials developed in Florida, and begin delivering them formally to membership. The reason for doing this was simple: not everyone gets to travel to Indianapolis to participate in those course offerings and this was our way to provide the materials to as many members as we can.

Since the inception of the Detachment MT&D Committee, we now have eight courses that are in the Florida SAL College System and available for delivery. Course 1 is in three parts and this is what we call our Florida SAL College. The three parts are Communications, Personal Administration and Personal Development and these give us the foundation of leadership to build upon. We deliver the first part during our annual fall conference and the last two parts in the spring at a local squadron somewhere in the state. There are no prerequisites for members to attend the courses, but they must complete an application and an essay. These are reviewed by the Detachment MT&D Committee for selection into the college. 

In the fall of 2012, the SAL College Session for the Class of 2013 began with 20 students that graduated at the detachment convention in June 2013. From there the system really took off as another 20 students graduated in the Class of 2014 to include two American Legion district commanders. We are currently preparing for the Class of 2015 to graduate this year in June and this class includes our first member of The American Legion Auxiliary.

One of our classes that has really gotten around the state so far is our Organizational Course, which is a full day of instruction about the Sons of The American Legion. This course includes a video history of The American Legion and an overview of the Sons history, officer’s responsibilities, meetings, reporting and much more. We are really excited about this course. Finally, we didn’t do this all by ourselves as we have to give credit to the National MT&D Committee for the materials over the years that we have used in our college, the Detachment of Pennsylvania developed District Commander’s Class that we have tailored for Florida and our Past Commanders Club has been asked to help us develop a Squadron Commander’s Course so we are looking forward to that sometime in the future.