Some 130 students from different academic, social, and special interest groups and from three different universities filled the Clark Student Center this past Saturday to take part in the Spring Leadership Conference to give students tools they’ll need to be effective leaders.
Students had the option to attend three educational breakout sessions to equip student leaders with the tools necessary to be successful in college and beyond.
“The group sessions were ‘just OK,’ nothing was really new. I did attend Seth Newton’s, and that was the most enjoyable,” Tam Voung, junior in marketing, said.
There was one break-out session in the morning and two in the afternoon. Most of the group sessions had fold out chairs in the room aligned in rows to ensure everyone was facing the speaker, however this setup led to limited interaction between participants.
“It would make it a lot easier for people to connect with each other if there were connecting tables in the sessions instead of chairs,” Jeffrey Millsap, freshman in engineering and MSU University Planning Board member, said. “I was kind of expecting people to be more talkative.”
The group sessions were constructed to give the speaker the chance to state their point via slideshow or handout limiting students who wanted to participate and engage more in the activities.
“Of course not all educational sessions at a conference will be appealing to everyone,” Kevin Bazner, assistant director of student development and orientation, said. “I found WeConnect provided a number of opportunities with other student leaders from MSU and area universities.”
All of the 11 break-out speakers were affiliated with MSU, including four students. Bazner said he hopes that at future conferences he can recruit speakers from across campus and maybe from the other two schools that attended, Tarleton State University and Cameron University.
“In the future, we will be sure to continue to request programs focusing on current organizational issues and ask more faculty, staff, and students to offer up presentations and ideas,” Bazner said.
The keynote speaker, T.J. Sullivan, was awarded the North-American Interfraternity Conference’s “Alumni Award of Distinction.” He does 30-40 college university leadership events a year and has spoken to more than 2 million students according to his website.
“I never head of the keynote speaker,” Vuong, said. However Vuong said he believed that Sullivan did make for an adequate event host. “T.J. was very good keynote speaker and really had a great theory of the top, middle, and bottom third in every organization.”
