Title: Graduate Student Leadership Conference

Session Description: The Graduate Student Committee will be hosting the second annual Graduate Student Leadership Conference to help current graduate students enhance life-long skills in professionalism, communication, and leadership through various workshop-style sessions. This conference will take place over two days. Sessions planned for this year include a professionalism lecture, a lecture and/or workshop on scientific communication to non-academic audiences, an afternoon with a consulting professional regarding workplace leadership styles and interactions (such as the DiSC self-assessment that was hugely successful last year), a session on leadership development, lunch with ASA, CSSA, and SSSA  leadership, and multiple opportunities for networking between students. The conclusion of the conference will lead into the Graduate Student Committee session on mentoring and networking, which is open to all attending the meetings. The conference sessions will be facilitated by one or more speakers and will have a strong interactive component. Attendees will leave with many resources to be successful in their remaining time as students and throughout their careers.

Last year was the inaugural conference.  Based on evaluations, students walked away from this conference with valuable skills, knowledge, and hands-on experience on how to be a graduate student leader. We will build on last year’s success, keeping a similar structure, and implementing some enhancements based on evaluation results and participant suggestions.

Sponsored by Decagon Devices, Inc. and Monsanto