The Office of Student Leadership and Civic Engagement will host the annual Winter Leadership Conference on Jan. 25 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Don Taft University Center’s Recreational Complex basketball courts.
With the tagline “Who are you?,” the Winter Leadership Conference aims to educate students on developing leadership skills and preparing them for their chosen career path. Throughout the event, students will meet with past, present and future campus leaders and be given advice specific to their needs as organizational leaders.
The theme for this year’s conference is “Building Your Brand,” which focuses on students’ personal and organizational brands.
Lauren Soares, graduate assistant for leadership development and civic engagement, said that every student should be thinking about their leadership roles while in college.
“Some students may not have an organizational brand yet, depending on where they’re coming from as a student leader, which is OK,” Soares said. “We want them to think about how they might build that brand throughout their college career and how they’re getting involved around campus.”
The free conference will feature break-out sessions, an alumni panel and keynote speaker K.J. McNamara, a performance coach from Phired Up! Productions, an Indiana-based company that trains and coaches sorority and fraternity leaders. The break-out sessions will be small group meetings on a variety of topics, tailored to the leadership experience of each student. The alumni panel will feature NSU alumni who have become successful in their careers through their leadership experiences that began when they were students.
Taylor Brown, junior business management major, is a member of the student committee organizing the conference. She hopes that attendees will utilize the resources available to them through this conference, especially that of the alumni panel.
“It’s great if you’re the president of an organization, but what does that do for you when you start your career? At the alumni panel, students will be able to ask the alumni about their personal experience, and how their campus leadership helped them in the real world,” said Brown.
The conference was created in 2008, and was originally a bi-annual event, held in the fall and winter semesters. Both conferences eventually merged into a single, winter conference in 2012. In past years, this conference has helped students enhance their leadership skills and expand their professional networks.
Brown hopes that this year’s conference will do the same and that students will communicate with past leaders to help them plan for the future.
Check-in for the conference will begin at 9 a.m. Students interested in attending must register on the conference’s OrgSync page: https://orgsync.com/45785/forms/88754.
For more information, contact Allison Foster, director of the Office of Student Leadership & Civic Engagement, at 954-262-7195 or af885@nova.edu.
