The 6th annual Intersect: Diversity and Leadership Conference brings together students and community members from all over North Carolina to Elon for a series of workshops that will engage students in a forum about applying leadership to combat current issues in diversity.
Tickets to the two-day conference are $50 but free for Elon students, and the link to register can be found at www.elon.edu/intersect. Participants will attend workshops, panel discussions and several lectures to learn about the conference’s four pillars: power and privilege, oppression, organizational development and social change. Attendees will also learn leadership skills to enable them to use or challenge these pillars appropriately and influence change on their campus, in the community and beyond.
Keynote speaker
Pulitzer Prize-winner Jose Antonio Vargas will speak at Elon University’s Diversity and Leadership Conference in February about coming out as an undocumented immigrant on the cover of Time magazine back in 2011.
A leader in the field of immigration reform, Vargas wrote for Washington Post, Huffington Post, The New Yorker, and Rolling Stone during his career. He has since began the Define American foundation to raise awareness about the broken immigration system in the United States, and is also producing a documentary “Documented,” which CNN will air nationally this spring.
A great opportunity for students
There are a variety of engaging workshops with topics that include: Hip Hop as Critical Pedagogy, Together in a Multifaith Community, Radical Cartography (Re-mapping the Spaces Around Us), and many more. Intersect is free for all Elon students, faculty, and staff. Food and beverages will be provided for participants. Additionally, the conference counts as a cultural event.
History
Intersect: Diversity and Leadership Conference is hosted by the Elon Multicultural Center, Center for Leadership and the Truitt Center for Religious and Spiritual Life in accordance with Elon’s diversity pledge for global engagement and respect for human differences. In 2010, the Leadership Development Institute and the Multicultural Student Council collaborated to create the “Intersect” concept, combining their values to form the four pillars. The Leadership Development Institute began in 1997 to equip students with skills needed to lead campus organizations effectively, and the Multicultural Student Council was founded in 2009 to prompt conversation and education about diversity at Elon.