Sessions ranged from professional networking to brushing up communications skills, finding motivation and leadership, the power of a good elevator pitch…even using LEGO blocks to visualize new thinking about connections. And more than 200 students from community colleges across the state converged on the Hotel Roanoke November 18-20 for this year’s VCCS Student Leadership Conference.
“I’m so glad I came,” said Takeia Davidson, who serves in student government at Paul D. Camp Community College. “It’s
Takeia Davidson PDCCC inspiring to see so many diverse people come together and learn to work for a better future. The conference helped confirm my goal to be a student advisor at one of our colleges.”
Kennedy Kilgore from Southwest Virginia Community College said the gathering gave her a chance to work on new skills, like active listening, and meet new friends. “I’m also so glad we took part in the hunger relief project,” said Kilgore.
Conference participants learned the power of service when they prepped and packed 20,000 meals for the Rise Against Hunger world food relief project. “It was exhausting, but I’d do it a million times over. It really brought the extent of world hunger into focus for all of us,” said Kilgore.
“I came to learn to be a better me,” said Josiah Greene, Woodbridge campus student representative at Northern Virginia Community College. “This was a great opportunity to polish up my leadership skills, and I really liked the session on how to make the most of LinkedIn to succeed in the new marketplace for talent.”
Erynn Martin VWCCErynn Martin, a student at Virginia Western Community College, said she appreciated the conference as a way to network and meet new contacts. “You really have to be here to absorb the experience,” said Martin. “My favorite session was a guided meditation exercise, imagining ourselves in fifteen years and what we might say to our present-day selves.”
The conference also played host to an announcement that the Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation has donated $125,000 to help community colleges in rural Virginia promote Single Stop, an online resource that helps students learn about social services they’re entitled to receive. Research shows many community college students face severe food and housing insecurity
