Tuesday, March 3, 2015

OCO Members Venture to LA for the IMPACT Conference


Nuha Alshabani '15 and Keynoter Wendy Spencer


Service leaders from colleges and universities across the country recently gathered on the west coast and BW was well represented. BW's Office of Community Outreach (OCO) sent graduate intern, Katy Johnson '14, and student leaders, Bryan Powell '16, Nuha Alshabani '15, Kara Carpenter '17 and Vanessa Adu-Gyamfi '17 to the recent IMPACT Conference in Los Angeles. Alshabani '15 also was selected to participate in the conference planning committee.

The IMPACT Conference held at Loyola Marymount University (LMU), is the largest annual conference focused on the civic engagement of college students in community service, service-based research and advocacy. The focus of the conference aligns with BW OCO’s mission to empower students to become contributing, compassionate citizens.


Julie Bishop, assistant director of BW OCO describes the conference as, "a great way for BW students to connect and share ideas with students from campuses across the country doing similar service work."
BW students at the IMPACT conference in LA

Students heard inspiring keynote addresses from Wendy Spencer, the CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service and Robert Egger, the President of the LA Kitchen founder of the Campus Kitchen Project, and attended seminars to discuss cultural awareness, societal privilege and methods to leverage the concepts learned from service in career building.

The students were also able to explore southwest LA and visit the beach. "It was super cool to see all the different 'stars' supporting various initiatives and bringing awareness to these issues," said Powell.

Students are expected to present their experiences and ideas at a team meeting later this year.