On behalf of the New England Campus Compacts and the Jenzabar Foundation we would like to thank you for registering for our upcoming student leadership conference, Best in Class: Building Skills, Changing Communities, which will be held at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst on October 1 and 2, 2010.

Attached you will find a campus map and directions to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Below is the schedule for the conference. Please make sure to arrive in time for registration. Parking passes will be issued for the parking garage when you check-in.

Schedule

Friday, October 1, 2010

Experience a community tour designed to help students working in the community develop a deeper understanding of complex community issues.  Participants will take part in a dynamic, interactive introduction to the Amherst community and learn best practices for leading your own community tour.

The Jones Library, Amherst, MA

2:00 Tours begin

Lutheran Church, Amherst, MA

6:00 Dinner

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Campus Center

8:30 Continental breakfast

9:00-9:30 Registration/Check-in, Campus Center

9:30-10:00 Welcome, Campus Center Auditorium

10:10-12:20 Morning workshop

12:20-1:20 Lunch

1:30-3:40 Afternoon workshop

3:50 Closing session

4:00 Adjourn

As a reminder, registration will remain open until Wednesday, September 29, 2010 at 5PM. Information can be found at: http://bestinclass2010.wordpress.com/ or by contacting me at kate.beyer@tufts.edu or 617-627-2033.

We look forward to seeing you at the conference!

Thank you,

Kate Beyer

Coordinator of Student Initiatives, Massachusetts Campus Compact

Attachments:

Directions to the Jones Library and Community Dinner

UMass directions parking and campus map

Nick Longo our keynote from Providence College will lead a morning workshop on “The Next Generation of Engagement”… In this interactive session, students will discuss how you see engagement on your campus, the possibilities for taking engagement to the next level, and strategies for making this happen.

Don’t forget, there is staff development too! Join us for a dialogue among colleagues that will be driven by what we all bring to the table, our passion, our challenges, and our best practices!

The Brandeis Model: Students, Partners, and Infrastructure
A round table discussion on best practices and meeting challenges with innovative solutions

Topics include, but are not limited to: program growth, fundraising, student training, students as colleagues, community partner outreach, community meetings, volunteer recruitment and reflection, assessment and risk management.

We finalized several key details this week.  We confirmed our core presenters, including our opening speaker, Nick Longo.  We’re still finalizing a few workshops, but most of that process is done.  Kate Beyer in our office is the point person for that, and has done a great job getting it organized.

Registration is also open (see the tab at the top of this page)!  Jillian with Campus Compact for New Hampshire set up a great registration page that let’s us manage the  whole process on line, which makes everything much easier.

There’s still a lot of work to do, but it’s exciting to see all the key elements of the conference falling into place!

Cheers,

Jeremy Poehnert

Conference Committee Member

Stephanie, who is on the conference organizing committee, and an AmeriCorps*VISTA member at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, is organizing a community tour of Amherst.

Community tours are a way to orient students to the communities they’ll be working in.  They often challenge preconceived ideas of what a certain area is like, and provide a great opportunity for discussion and reflection before students start their community projects.

For the conference we’ll use the Amherst tour as a model of how students can implement their own community tours.  In addition to the actual tour we’ll give participants some great resources/tools for planning tours in their own communities.

I think these kind of tours are a powerful way to introduce people to the community, and can deepen the knowledge and commitment of those participating.  It should be a great session.

Cheers,

Jeremy

Member, organizing committee

We’ve been sending out publicity to our various member institutions, with the hopes that students can start registering as soon as the new semester starts.  With a relatively small window between the beginning of the academic year and the conference, the registration process has to happen quickly!

We’re also in the process of cementing the plans for the actual conference.  We have the general schedule planned, but we’re still working out some details.  I’m especially excited about one of our workshops, “Language as a Tool for Change,” which should be very interesting.

Cheers,

Jeremy Poehnert

Conference Committee Member