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Issue date: 10/29/09 Section: Campus Events

Dr. Edward Leoni shows his care for students during a class demonstration

Every once in a while a teacher comes along in a student's academic career that makes an impact that changes the course of that student's life forever. For the past 15 years, Dr. Edward Leoni has made that impact on countless numbers of students' lives through his Lifestyle Enhancement Course at Southeast.

"The course involves investigating our behaviors and then changing 75 of them to align with our newly developed self image, which is one that is to create lasting contentment," Leoni said. Through implementing those 75 small shifts, students create far-reaching changes that set them on a path to living an authentic and fulfilling life.

Jessica Miller, a student in Leoni's class said, "He's allowed me to think outside the box. It made me feel like a healthier, better person overall."

Leoni was forced into his own reassessment when, several years ago, he found himself battling cancer. Faced with his own mortality, Leoni realized that he had to make a decision: to give up and give in to the disease, or to change his attitude and fight his way back to health.

"Without a wake up call, without a vision of our mortality we won't know how to live, we won't be inspired to really be different and unique," Leoni said. By providing his students with their own wake up calls, Leoni challenges them to reevaluate whether or not they are living the life of their dreams.

"(Dr. Leoni) allows individuals to evaluate themselves. Because of his class I have a foundation of where I want to go now," Miller said.

"In nature we are unique, and for some reason we are born an original, we need to not die a copy," said Leoni.

So how do we get to this place of conformity? "Well it's reinforced," said Leoni, "we totally ignore this phenomenal gift of uniqueness because we're afraid to get out there, because people laugh at you because you're different, then you conform quickly to what everyone else wants you to be." It is a phenomenon that can lead to the development of destructive behavioral patterns that are difficult to break. Leoni goes on to explain that one of the reasons people fail to make necessary changes in their lives is because they tend to blow things out of proportion until they become overwhelming, making changes nearly impossible to implement.

"It's all up to you, all I do is facilitate your movement," Leoni said. Through his guidance, Leoni enables students to make the necessary changes for themselves. He explains that he helps students to gradually shift their behaviors in order to ensure they don't stumble in the process.

Where as other professors teach students how to work, Leoni teaches them how to live. "Life will make much more sense, and you won't be like many individuals to get to the end of your life and say 'I never lived'."

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