Departments advance National Legion College graduates

Iowa’s National American Legion College graduates become ex-officio members of our training committee for the two years following their graduation. The training committee is responsible for two events: Midwinter Conference and leadership school.
Legion College alumni plan and execute the curriculum for our Midwinter Conference, our primary post-level training event.

The conference covers post programs across the four pillars of The American Legion, as well as training on the business and leadership requirements needed to operate a post.

Leadership school is held over a weekend each year in June and is geared toward newly elected district vice commanders, district commanders and candidates for department headquarters. Leadership school teaches many of the same subjects as Legion College like team building and goal setting, however, it’s not as in-depth as Legion College. We do bring in a speaker each year to speak on their leadership experiences.

Iowa National Legion College graduates are made ex-officio members for several reasons.

First, we want to draw on their experience at Legion College in helping to set the leadership school curriculum. Second, we want them to be exposed to the incoming department leadership, so their names and qualifications are known when the candidate(s) for department commander is deliberating department committee appointments. Being ex-officio on the training committee does not prevent them from serving in another appointment. And last, we don’t want them to be stuck on the training committee. Quite often their passion and skills better suit them for continuing service in another area. We want them to have the freedom to follow that passion.