Twenty-four Nicholls students and four advisors were selected to attend the National Student Leadership Conference, a meeting that combines entertainment with skill-strengthening activities, in Orlando this month.
Judy Daniels, dean of student life, said Nicholls has many wonderful student leaders, and there are plenty of opportunities for students to learn to lead, serve and have experiences that can help them develop successfully as young professionals. Daniels said Nicholls previously had nothing that would allow everyone to “get on the same page and have (everyone) headed in the same direction” of being able to be successful and recruit and attract students to get involved in life at Nicholls.
Because the University will change by 2005, Daniels questioned what could be done to prepare current student leaders for those changes and challenges beyond Nicholls.
“What do we really want to do to attract the best and brightest potential leaders at Nicholls, and once we attract them, what are we going to offer them?” Daniels said. “What are we going to do to encourage and to tap into the raw talent that many students bring right from high school?”
According to Daniels, spawning from these questions was the idea to find somewhere in Louisiana or in the country where an opportunity to identify student leaders is offered. Daniels said many students at the University have never been outside of Louisiana, on an airplane, in a hotel and have never attended a conference, and she wanted to allow them to experience those opportunities. After spending a few months searching for leadership conferences, Daniels decided on the national Student Leadership Conference at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla.
“All the feedback and the research I did on the conference suggested that it was good, and it is at Disney,” Daniels said. “The Disney faculty are involved in a lot of the presentations and the sessions. From what I know of Disney, they are probably the best in the world in terms of customer service, marketing and in getting their message out in the best possible way and being very effective of that. Our students are going to have an opportunity to learn how Disney does it, and they’re going to learn a little bit more about themselves and hopefully emerge with lots of ideas and enthusiasm.”
Daniels described the conference as “taking a classroom on the road to expand (the student’s) horizons and open them up to looking at Nicholls (from the perspective of) running the University and addressing the needs of students.”
The current travel itinerary for the conference is tentative and includes a chronological list of things to do from Thursday, Nov. 20 through Sunday, Nov. 23. Participants will free times to visit Disney Theme Parks if they choose. There will be conference sessions and workshops from Friday through Sunday.
“There are people from across the country who will be conducting conferences, and at each breakout session, there will be anywhere from seven to eight workshops on different aspects of leaderships,” Daniels said.
“The list (of the 24 students and four advisors attending the conference),” Daniels said, “came about as a result of recommendations from department heads, presidents from executive boards and groups that said, ‘This is who we want to send (to the conference), and this is how much (money) we’re going to put toward that effort.’ “
An issue following the positive feedback from the various organizations was one of funding. According to Daniels, the cost of the trip per person is approximately $700, including round-trip airfare, hotel accommodation, conference registration, a few meals and transportation. Daniels approached the organizations and departments last spring in the mid-semester in order to give them enough time to look at their budgets over the summer and into the fall and make a decision about incorporating their departmental student leader in the National Student Leadership Conference.
Daniels said: “(I gave the organizations enough time) to make a decision (and say), ‘Yeah, we have a student leader over here in (this department) who’s outstanding, and you’ve given us enough time to look at your program. We’ve had enough time to look at our priorities and to budget to see if we want invest X amount of money in sending this student to a four-day conference in Florida in late November along with other identified student leaders to hopefully come back with a common agenda and a common initiative focused on recruiting and retaining student leaders on this campus.’ “
Eric Haydel, public relations sophomore from Ville Platte, photo editor of La Pirogue and a student chosen to attend the conference, said, “I’m really excited (about attending the conference in Orlando). It’s an honor to be able to represent the University. I’m looking forward to having fun and seeing everything that Disney has to offer, but most importantly, I’m looking forward to the opportunities to learn how to deal with small to large campus problems that will help me here on campus but also in the future in my career.”