Overall, a grade-A conference. I confess,
sometimes its hard to see the forest for the
trees
when you're helping organize an event even for
a
few short weeks, but I got so much positive
feedback on both logistics and content. I
agree
with Matt that the morning session was really
energizing and snappy. And for sure, my fellow
students in attendance were awesome. everyone
seemed to walk out feeling positive.
I have more faith in skills training sessions
and
smaller, more interactive groups than in
panels,
which, however great, are just more talking AT
you. Communications strategies can easily be
interactive crit sessions, sam with campus
organizing, being an effective spokesperson,
connecting local issues to global ones, etc.
Also- if we have issue panels there
must!must!must! be one on gender issues,
ranging
from the gender stereotypes in political
power,
queer issues, questions of marriage and
reproductive health (clearly not ALL of those
in
one panel, but some, b/c they were absent this
time).
As a first effort, the conference really went
above and beyond my expectations in terms of
the
professionalism, the quality of the speakers,
the
evidence of great resources, both financial
and
human. we have so much going for us that our
learning curve for being a powerful force on
campus will be a fraction of the right-wing's.
Following the 1st Campus Progress National Student Conference and a convention in my home state, I'm just starting to recover. DC is something else. And this Conference is something else. I met so many people who have done and are doing work all across this country that is great. And I met even more with plans in the works to do even better work.
I finally met, in person, friends like Asheesh and Ezra. I made new friends. I missed some people that I would like to have met (with 600 people, it would be near-impossible to catch them all). What can you do?
Still, I'm incredibly impressed by how the whole event came off. If you only watch one video of the conference, make sure you check out the opening panel on the battle of ideas. The panelists did a great job. If you watch another, watch the one on economic policy. I'm looking forward to downloading the videos of the panels I couldn't be at.
At this point, though, now that we've had an opportunity to look back, what would you want done differently? The greatest thing about blogs is that they allow for the dialogue, so, please, jump in and tell the folks at the Center what you would want to see done differently next year.
Talking to others, I can say that one of the frequent complaints was that there wasn't enough...time. The day we had was packed, fun, emotional, and exhausting. But we've got hundreds and thousands of young leaders across this country seeking skills and education to go out and do good work. One day was not enough.
One of my other concerns was that the skill trainings were all related to communications. All four were great and loaded with excellent panelists, but where were the basics of campus organizing, the Student Government Elections 101, or the live version of Nico Pitney's guide to quick, dirty, and great research.
These are some of my thoughts and thoughts I heard from others I met with.
What are yours?
Please remember that Campus Progress' terms of use do not allow promoting or endorsing any particular political party or candidate for office. Posts or comments that do this will be deleted.
!
sometimes its hard to see the forest for the trees
when you're helping organize an event even for a
few short weeks, but I got so much positive
feedback on both logistics and content. I agree
with Matt that the morning session was really
energizing and snappy. And for sure, my fellow
students in attendance were awesome. everyone
seemed to walk out feeling positive.
I have more faith in skills training sessions and
smaller, more interactive groups than in panels,
which, however great, are just more talking AT
you. Communications strategies can easily be
interactive crit sessions, sam with campus
organizing, being an effective spokesperson,
connecting local issues to global ones, etc.
Also- if we have issue panels there
must!must!must! be one on gender issues, ranging
from the gender stereotypes in political power,
queer issues, questions of marriage and
reproductive health (clearly not ALL of those in
one panel, but some, b/c they were absent this
time).
As a first effort, the conference really went
above and beyond my expectations in terms of the
professionalism, the quality of the speakers, the
evidence of great resources, both financial and
human. we have so much going for us that our
learning curve for being a powerful force on
campus will be a fraction of the right-wing's.