The 2001 Fall Leadership Conference held Saturday, Nov. 10, in the Busch Memorial Center provided students a chance to learn and perfect leadership skills.

“To have 130 people show up at 9:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning is a success,” said Chad Kreikemeier, the student intern at the Center for Leadership and Community Service. “I’m very happy with the turnout.”

The day, from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., consisted of a keynote speaker, lunch and three breakout sessions.

“There was something for every kind of leader,” Kreikemeier said. Whether an emerging or advanced leader, attendees could find helpful sessions, including networking, meeting goals and even the importance of sleep.

“As a current student leader, I feel that I benefited from what I learned last Saturday,” said Lauren Smith, president of Sigma Kappa Sorority. “I was pleased to see many of the up-and-coming leaders from my sorority in attendance to learn and better themselves.”

I was pleasantly surprised by how smoothly the day ran, by the variety of breakout workshops and by the diverse group of attendees,” Smith continued. “For a first-time event, the Fall Leadership Conference seemed to be a great success.”

Kreikemeier said that the success of the day was due to strenuous work by Caroline Heckman, the leadership coordinator for the Center for Leadership and Community Service.

However, in the future, the event is to be run solely by students. “We’ve already got a lot of feedback and people are interested in helping plan the event next year,” Kreikemeier said.

From the evaluation sheets, Kreikemeier said that most of the comments were positive and encouraging. Students commented on the delicious quality of the food and nice-looking t-shirt.

The Center for Leadership and Community Service hosted a workshop series this semester titled “Foundations of Leadership.” The final event this semester will take place Tuesday, Nov. 27, at 6 p.m., titled Leaving Your Legacy: Deepening your personal leadership journey. It will focus on “your personal mission statement, surrendering to unmet goals and mentoring others,” according to the flyer.

Next semester, a similar type of leadership conference will be held at SLU for 72 high school students on Thursday, Feb. 21.

The Fall Leadership Conference, like the workshops, is part of the SLU L.E.A.D.S. program, or Leading through Experience, Action, Diversity and Spirituality.