The CONQUER Student Leadership Conference will take place at Marywood on Nov. 12 from 2 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Director of Student Activities and Leadership Development (SALD) Kim Coleman and Assistant Director of SALD Michael Kalage worked together to plan the event.

Last March, SALD held a Leadership Awards Ceremony to recognize student leaders around campus.

“The leadership awards was our first attempt at focusing on leadership and making it all-inclusive,” said Kalage.

According to Coleman, one goal of the upcoming CONQUER conference is for it be all-encompassing and open to the surrounding community.

Kalage explained, “We do little things with clubs on campus, but we wanted to strike a big event where everyone was invited.”

The conference will begin with keynote speaker Eric McElvenney, a marine who was injured by an improvised explosive device (IED) on his third tour in Afghanistan.

“The name [CONQUER] fits the theme of what our keynote speaker is going to talk about,” said Kalage. “While brainstorming, we kept coming back to the word ‘conquer.’”

Following the speech, students will break into sessions and discuss various leadership topics and network with other presenters.

Marywood faculty, staff and graduate students will present, as well as presenters from the University of Scranton, Binghamton University, King’s College, the Geisinger School of Medicine and the U.S. Army, according to Coleman.

Both Coleman and Kalage mentioned that other universities “were excited about the opportunity and said that they would encourage their students to attend and would sponsor their participation.”

“We thought it was important to have outside students from the eight different local universities to be invited as well,” mentioned Coleman.

Registration for the conference includes a free t-shirt, conference materials and a sit-down dinner. It is free for all Marywood students and $20 for non-Marywood students.

The deadline for registration is Oct. 20.

For more information, visit the Marywood website.

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