On September 16, The Mary Jane and Hugh M. Archer ‘37 Center for Student Leadership Development hosted the Annual Student Leadership Conference, entitled “Leadership 2006: Perspectives from the World’s Leading Companies.” While 300 spots were available for interested students to participate, prior registration was required due to the past popularity of the program. This year was no exception as 300 students registered, in addition to 10 students hosts and five student volunteers.
The structure of the conference was very different from recent years, in which only one company was the sponsor. “We wanted to try something different,” said Linda Teitelman McCloskey, director of the Archer Center. “It was a huge success. We’re going to try to [do] it the same way next year,” she noted. This year, 37 executives and staff from 10 different companies—Accenture, BAE Systems, Cisco Systems, ExxonMobil, General Motors, Lockheed Martin, Merck & Co., Inc., Northrop Grumman, Proctor & Gamble, and Sensata Technologies—facilitated the educational sessions alongside staff from the Archer Center.
While most students seemed to enjoy the new format, Trent Gillaspie’ 08 commented, “I was the student host for Lockheed Martin and although it was a very unique experience being able to spend quality time with a few executives all day, I felt that last year’s conference with IBM made me feel like I accomplished a little bit more—by mingling with a lot of people from a company and doing a larger group event that involved some competition.”
Student participants were able to attend three out of the 10 sessions offered, which were geared toward exposing students to leadership training from a corporate perspective. Sessions ran for about 85 minutes each, and covered a variety of topics such as: “Succeeding in a Connected, Virtual Environment,” “Cross-culture Communication & Global Project Management,” and “Leadership Success.” A catered lunch also afforded students the opportunity to network with corporate executives and staff.
The general student opinion on the success of the conference was extremely positive, according to McCloskey. “At the end of the conference, students were coming up to us with a lot [of] positive feedback,” McCloskey proclaimed.
“It was great!” exclaimed Victor Calvert, ’07, affirming McCloskey’s assertion. “The Student Leadership Conference was a valuable networking experience, in addition to the value of the corporate workshop sessions,” he said. “But I especially enjoyed being able to hear perspectives on such important topics from several different companies.”
The Student Leadership Conference has expanded from its humble roots, where it was originally run out of the Student Union and had no ties to corporations. “Having that corporate connection is very important,” McCloskey pointed out. It wasn’t until the Archer Center was created that the Student Leadership Conference integrated corporate sponsorship.
