Playing to Their Strengths: How Rebecca Hermance and Bambi Van Horn Use CliftonStrengths to Improve the Lives of Their Students
UNK’s College of Business and Technology is on the cusp of becoming even more intentionally excellent thanks to the forward-thinking of Dean Brooke Envick and the intentionality of two of her instructors. While many at the CBT have already discovered their strengths based on the Gallup Global Strengths, great strides are being made to create a schoolwide culture where these strengths are maximized to their potential.
One way CBT is being intentional with this culture shift is through the selection of Rebecca Hermance and Bambi Van Horn for the prestigious Gallup Global Strengths Coach Certification Program. Through this training, both Hermance and Van Horn will learn new ways to empower the College of Business and Technology to move forward in growth and excellence.
Rebecca Hermance shares how learning her own personal strengths has been instrumental in her role as senior lecturer for Interior and Product Design. She explains how one of her “top five strengths is Includer” which she uses “quite often” in her classes because she doesn’t “like people to feel left out of a conversation or a group.” She uses this knowledge to “try to connect people and make sure everyone’s voice is heard.”
This inclination toward taking care of others was obvious when, early in her career, Hermance taught elementary school. Now that she is teaching at the university level, she still understands the need to keep “a relationship attached to the data.” She explains how every freshman takes the CliftonStrengths assessment in their entry-level courses. She understands the need to help these students “learn how to make meaningful connections” in order to “grow their talents into useful strengths.”
Through the Gallup Global Strengths Coach Certification Program, she knows she will add more to her toolkit which will allow her to help her students find and use their strengths for their professional and personal lives. Hermance stresses that “one of the greatest things about learning your strengths is to be able to have a common language in which to communicate with others.” She understands that it’s not “just about knowing your strengths.” She believes there needs to be an ongoing effort to help others take their “unique talents” and figure out how to “strengthen or apply those talents” both personally and professionally.
Hermance uses her students’ strengths in her classes to give them a head start in their careers. For example, in a class where her students are practicing interviews, she has them list their top five strengths before coming up with a list of words to describe each strength. This strategy is used by her to help her students articulate, in their own words, what they will one day be asked to share with a potential employer. She uses this same strategy to help her students complete their LinkedIn profiles and add to their portfolios.
Bambi Van Horn, who graduated from UNK with a degree in Broadcast Journalism, has been teaching Business Communications at UNK for the past 18 years. She explains how her interest in CliftonStrengths has been growing since 2021. After taking the assessment on campus, she attended a CBT Faculty Retreat facilitated by Larry Keiter which led to her attendance at the 2024 CliftonStrengths Institute Summer Conference. Learning about how the strengths can be used in educational settings intrigued her, especially when she learned about Dr. Don Clifton’s groundwork on focusing on strengths instead of weaknesses. She’s excited to be among the first faculty members at UNK’s CBT to incorporate this philosophy in a student-centered manner. She states that she thinks “helping students understand and articulate their CliftonStrengths works seamlessly into the culture we are creating here at UNK.”
On a personal level, she has seen how her twin daughters have learned to incorporate their strengths as “professional currency” as they have worked on both college and scholarship applications. She shares how “that experience reinforced” what she has witnessed with her own students. She explains how they “feel more empowered” once they understand their own strengths.
Van Horn explains how, as a Learner per her CliftonStrengths assessment, she feels more aware of the need to be cautious about “tools like ChatGPT” which she understands “can be a time drain” in her life. She shares that “what starts out as a quick question can lead to hours of exploration” and now she has learned to “set boundaries to become more productive.” Learning about herself has helped her understand her students better. In her Business Communications course, she helps her students “build confidence in their Strengths by assigning a Strength Speech” where they “become more aware of their Strengths and appreciate the different talents other students possess” Van Horn understands this exploration “complements several topics in the course, including collaboration and interpersonal communication.” She plans to “coach students on how to incorporate their Strengths when applying for employment” by meeting with them individually “to help them craft an elevator speech” to integrate their CliftonStrengths in an effective “tell me about yourself” response. She knows her students can use these speeches at networking events such as the CBT Career Fair.
Bambi Van Horn and Rebecca Hermance were chosen for this opportunity because both instructors already consistently use what they know about the CliftonStrengths to give their students the best education possible. As lifelong learners, both are excited about gaining more knowledge which they can pass on to their students.
Van Horn explains how “getting the certification will help (her) be a resource for students, faculty, and staff.” She shares that when someone operates in their strengths zone, they are “more engaged at work, have more positive interactions with colleagues, and accomplish more on a daily basis.” She is excited to earn this certification because she believes it will help her to “boost (her) understanding and ability to recognize one’s natural talents” which will help her to “give others the confidence to move in the direction of doing what they do best.” Hermance believes that “becoming a certified Strengths coach will help (her) gain more resources and ideas for how to implement strengths more intentionally” in her classes as well as ideas to “share with colleagues that help them create activities specifically geared toward their course objectives” She states that CliftonStrengths is “one of those multipurpose tools” that people “don’t realize how useful it can be until (they) really start using it.”
Thanks to the attention to excellence both Bambi Van Horn and Rebecca Hermance bring to the CBT every day, the culture of the college is on a forward path to help students thrive in all areas of their lives.
