The fourth annual Social Justice in Action Leadership Summit took place on Saturday, Feb. 21, 2015. The event was an all-day event, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and took place in Hiner Hall.
Check in for the summit started at 9:00 a.m., where participants were able to enjoy a free continental breakfast. Then, at 9:30 a.m., the summit began with Dr. Tim Pierson speaking to participants and introducing the keynote speakers.
The two keynote speakers were Vernon Walls and Paul Brown and they spoke together for an hour, focusing on the year’s theme, which revolved around social justice, in social media, in the digital age.
Vernon Walls serves as the Director of Educational Programs and Publications for the American College Personnel Association (ACPA) and College Student Educators International. Paul Brown is a scholar, consultant and speaker who works on college student learning and student development, and how that intersects with technology, social media and design.
After Walls and Paul finished speaking, the participants were allowed to choose one of three speaker sessions they wanted to attend before lunch. All sessions were closely tied into the social justice and social media theme, with some sessions being about the negatives of Yik Yak, diversity, and stereotyping.
Member of the event’s planning committee, Constance Garner said, “We had a lot of great speakers, and a lot of great breakaway sessions. The event went really great this year.”
Although the snowy day did prevent some from attending the event, and caused some to have to leave early because of the roads, the event had over sixty people in attendance.
Lunch at the event took place in the Nance Room, in Dorrill Dining Hall, where all the speakers were able to eat with students, faculty, staff and other participants who attended. At lunch, Justin Reid, the Associate Director for Museum Operations at the Moton Museum, spoke to the crowd before the next sessions began.
In the afternoon, the summit held two more speaker breakaway sessions, which gave students the option to pick and choose which sessions they would attend. The speakers came from many different places all across the country, and some came from right here in Virginia.
The event was free for Longwood students and twenty-five dollars for non-Longwood students, as well as for faculty and staff. With registration to the leadership summit, each participant received a t-shirt, lanyard, breakfast and lunch.
Also going along with the social media theme, the participants had the chance to tweet with the #SJLS15, in order to send feedback and post about their day at the event.
According to Longwood University’s website, the mission of the leadership summit was to “motivate and encourage students to use their experiences as citizen leaders to advocate for social justice (change) and equality on campus and throughout their perspective communities.”
