Following the successful leadership conference organized in the past two years, the Graduate Student Committee will be hosting the third Graduate Student Leadership Conference during this year’s annual meeting at Phoenix, AZ. The conference will build on the success of previous years by keeping similar structure with some modifications based on evaluation results and suggestions of previous participants and instructors. Since prospective students will come from diverse background, the sessions will be structured such that they will be consistent with their interest, aptitudes, and academic areas.

 The sessions for this year will include a workshop on workplace leadership styles and interactions by using the DiSC leadership-assessment, lectures on leadership skill development and professionalism, as well as interactive talks on building high-performance team and avenues to communicating your research. Participants will get the opportunity to have lunch with ASA, CSSA, and SSSA leadership. There will be break-out sessions where students will choose from a list of sessions that will be running parallel. This will help participants to attend sessions that are more tailored to their fields and interests. There will be multiple opportunities for networking between participants. Attendees will leave with a lot of skills, knowledge, and hands on experience to be successful in their remaining time as students and throughout their careers. These include:

• Identify and effectively manage their leadership style.
• Learn and practice techniques to build a strong professional network.
• Learn effective communication and conflict resolution techniques.
• Innovative and able to take initiative that will contribute to an improvement or service to society.
• Increase personal effectiveness while maintaining work/life balance.