100th Post!

Hello loyal Blog followers! We have reached the 100th post, and it took a lot longer than I suspected it would. I blame that on workaholicism, netflix, and that age old, awful excuse that time escaped me. 

Today I got the opportunity to take three students who volunteered to attend a leadership conference with me. It is nice when students take advantage of professional development opportunities. When I was a Greek adviser years and years ago- I could offer to pay for the entire conference, hotel stays, transportation and food and I would still find it impossible to get students to attend. Even today while driving to this conference two of the three students were busy doing homework as to not lose time in the travel. But I wish that I could help all students to see the value and the transferable skills that can be gained by taking advantage of experiences like leadership conferences. 

Today there were students from a variety of schools with sessions to chose from about leadership and an awesome keynote by Vernon A Wall. If you ever get the opportunity to hear him speak or attend his summer Social Justice Training Institute I recommend it. His message about how we all live in one world and our identities influence everything, including how we treat one another. His message was full of energy and it was simple- just to the point about how we need to love one another and respect our differences. I really enjoyed it and so did the students with me. 

I was honored to have the opportunity to present today about the True Colors Personality Test and how that relates to leadership. I had a great crowd of students who seemed to enjoy it and participated fully. Those are my favorite kind of sessions, where the students talk among each other and seem to enjoy the topic. They understood the themes I was trying to get across and their conversations were so rich that I had to cut out one of my activities! 

I was also impressed with the students, including first year students, who presented today in front of the crowd of students and staff members attending the conference as well. I am getting softer as I age-I get so proud of students and their accomplishments that I tear up just thinking about it. This winter we had a case study in our RA training and when I hear them talking about it and what they learned it is another case of the proud mama tears. 

It is hard to be a student in college these days- I would imagine the feeling of being torn between  academic achievement and the pressure to expand the resume with extra curricular activities drives many of today's students bonkers. I really do appreciate the time they take to be RAs, participate in all the trainings and inservices we require and still find time to volunteer a Saturday to learn more about leadership. I appreciate it even more when they share with me on the way home how much they enjoyed it and what they learned.