Multicultural Student Leadership Conference emphasizes student development
The Office for Institutional Diversity & Inclusion and Multicultural Academic Student Services presented the second annual Multicultural Student Leadership Conference on Saturday in the Bovee University Center. The conference is meant to aid students in areas of leadership and multicultural development.
At around 10 a.m. students poured into the UC Rotunda where they shared company and breakfast. University President George Ross shared some words of wisdom and the importance of leadership when entering the workforce after graduation.
After the introduction ceremony, students broke off into sessions, where workshops were held with presenters. There were three sessions to chose from and the workshops discussed leadership, success and budgeting.
Some workshops aimed more toward the student to thinking deeper about understanding who they are and the choices they make.
In a session titled, “Emotional Intelligence: The Key to Being Culturally Self Aware”, Dan Gaken, director of the Leadership Institution, discussed the importance of engaging with others who are different than us. His conversation allowed students to open up to talk about issues frequently on their mind such as race, socioeconomic status and where they are from.
Another session in which was called “An [UN]hidden Identity," Montisa Watkins discussed the state of the view of Muslims and to show an initiative to advocate and support Muslim students. Watkins explained how “if we don’t understand each other then it makes us feel uncomfortable”.
Detroit senior Bryana Brown attended the session and admits she went for the experience but learned more.
“I wanted to interact with some people of multiculturalism and just get a little bit more involved.” Brown said. “The one (workshop) I went to earlier was about building your brain, and he talked a lot about being your own self and how learning about who you are affects your leadership.”
Between the second and last session students were served lunch and were taught a lesson about etiquette. and had the keynote Jonathan Glenn, MASS assistant director for scholarships and mentoring, delivered the keynote address.
Senior Dyese Matthews, public relations chair for MSLC, was satisfied with the day’s events and outcome.
“Everything is going awesome, a lot of students are enjoying our presentations and find it really easy to connect to them because we have various options and they are definitely finding an option that interests them, which was our goal," Matthews said.
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