Student Spotlight: Michelle Miller

On September 20th, Michelle Miller, a Master of Organizational Leadership candidate at Wilson College, hosted an educational clinic at the Wilson College Equestrian Center. 

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Michelle with one of our equine demonstrators, Sebastian

The event welcomed around 40 attendees, including students from the Equine Studies and Equine Facilitated Therapeutics (EFT) programs, alumni, local stable owners, and community members.

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The clinic featured two guest presenters. Kendra Clarke led the first session, focusing on how different types of horse conformation can affect a rider. Wilson’s Director of Equestrian Teams, Kailey Vande Kamp, participated as a demonstration rider. Kendra also shared mounted and unmounted exercises designed to help horses improve their movement based on conformational challenges—physical traits or structural characteristics in the horse’s body that may affect its movement, performance, or comfort when doing tasks or being ridden.

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The second session was led by Lisa Pulliam, who demonstrated how equine-assisted psychotherapy sessions are conducted. She also explained how horses can influence the human somatic nervous system.

Four of Wilson’s school horses—Sebastian, Potato, Jellybean, and Waffles—were part of the demonstrations and helped make the clinic a success.
 

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The EFT Club, advised by Miller, supported the event by selling snacks and drinks and speaking with attendees about their experiences in the program.

Miiller shared, ""Wilson College's Master of Organizational Leadership program has been a transformational experience.  Each class taught me something that I have already applied in my career, and the capstone experience provided me an opportunity to put all the concepts previous classes taught me into action in a meaningful way."

Thank you to everyone who helped make the clinic a valuable learning experience for all who attended.