U of A Students Attend Southwestern Black Student Leadership Conference

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U of A students and staff who attended the 2013 Southwestern Black Student Leadership Conference.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – A group of University of Arkansas students and staff attended the 25^th annual Southwestern Black Student Leadership Conference at Texas A&M University last month. The U of A Center for Multicultural and Diversity Education sponsored the sixteen student leaders and three staff members for the three-day intensive learning conference.

The event is designed to motivate students to become great leaders in their communities while challenging them to apply their learning experience to their campus involvement. The theme of this year’s conference was “Embrace the Unknown.” The agenda consisted of workshops, speakers, receptions, a career fair and entertainment.

“The workshops I attended really opened my eyes to adversities within our community and campus that I didn’t notice as much before,” said Ayanna McWoods. McWoods, said she learned that being a leader involves noticing the work of individuals and “turning them into helping hands.”

For Rachel Dukes, the students who worked all year to bring the event to life were an inspiration.

“The one thing that I enjoyed most about the conference was seeing the SBSLC committee come together to pull off this amazing conference,” she said.

Jasmine Spears is a member of the National Pan-Hellenic executive board at the U of A. She said the conference taught her lessons she can apply to her own organization.

 “Black Greek lettered organizations need to greatly improve their standards as well as get back to their individual founding principles,” she said, adding that she wants to use what she learned at the conference to help the university’s Black Greek organizations become more unified and serve the student community better.

Sponsorships to the conference were awarded to students based on their desire to develop leadership skills and their good academic and disciplinary standing. Students were selected based on their GPA, current involvement in extracurricular activities, and an essay submission. The center provided funding for all but five student registration fees, which were covered by the Associated Student Government. The center invested roughly $6,000 for the conference registration fees, hotel and travel expenses.

The Center for Multicultural and Diversity Education enhances the academic experience for students at the University of Arkansas by providing programs and experiences in the areas of educational enrichment, leadership development, and social networking to assist in the advancement of an inclusive learning community.