While many students were returning from winter break this weekend, more than 150 sophomore students met for the PULSE (Preparing Undergraduate Leaders, a Student Experience) leadership conference.
The conference is designed to help students network with other students in different organizations while also building skills for current and future leadership positions through learning, inspiring and empowering others.
The weekend focussed on the core values of collaboration, communication and reflection in order to help students understand themselves and their personal leadership styles.
Beverly Langford, president of LMA Communication, a consulting, training and coaching firm, spoke Saturday about the best ways to use communication in all forms of leadership positions and how communication affects many different parts of a person’s life.
Langford talked about how a person’s reputation greatly correlates with his or her ability to communicate effectively.
“A lot of times, perception outweighs reality,” Langford said. “The problem with your reputation is that it’s a rolling, moving part. It’s changing all the time because you’re changing all the time and you’re doing different things.”
She went on to say that maintaining credibility is important to help your reputation among colleagues.
Friday night consisted of a welcome to the conference, dinner sponsored by the Associated Student Body and a keynote address by Randy Gravitt, author of “Finding Your Way: Discovering The Truth About You” and founder of INTEGREAT Leadership.
“It was really exciting for me, last night, to see everybody who was really engaged and invested in … Randy Gravitt’s keynote,” said Hal Sullivan, coordinator of student affairs programs, Office of Leadership and Advocacy.
Saturday consisted of several speeches throughout the day addressing the three core values of PULSE from Beverly Langford, Lionel Maten and E.J. Presley, along with small group sessions to reflect on what the students had learned and what their takeaways were from the lectures.
Melinda Sutton Noss, assistant vice chancellor for student affairs and dean of students, welcomed the participants to their second day of the conference and talked about the importance of participation in the PULSE program on their futures.
“I hope that (students) will take advantage of all of the amazing opportunities that the staff has put together during this conference,” Noss said. “They have worked very hard and have been very intentional in the activities and presentations that they have coordinated.”
Noss said that while learning and growing as a leader is the overall objective of the conference, students should still expect to have fun and enjoy themselves while enhancing their leadership abilities.
“(The staff) have structured the program to make it as fun and as engaging as possible, which means that I know that today is going to be another great day,” Noss said.
In addition, Saturday’s conference also addressed diversity and potential challenges.
“There’s no doubt that the world has changed. It certainly is more diverse, which is great,” Langford said. “It makes such a positive difference, but it doesn’t make things easier necessarily because you’ve got cultural differences and all kinds of backgrounds, and you’ve got to learn to cross those differences.”
