Concurrent Sessions by Block
Track listings are subject to change.
Leadership Development
Professional Development
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity
Leadership Development
Leadership: Learning How to Spend Your Next 50 years
Herb Rubenstein
Growth Strategies Inc.
This facilitated workshop includes an activity – creating a “road map” by each participant where they will write down several major accomplishments they want to achieve in each of their next five decades. This presentation will show how leaders use “applied vision” to foster a future world view with themselves being active participants in creating the future they envision. One takeaway will be for participants to see how creating their own “Leadership Road Map 1.0” can help guide them in making the difference in the world they want to make in the future. The workshop is based, in part, on several key leadership lessons from the biography, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David Blight, PhD., Yale University Press, 2018.
Leader Liars-Pants on Fire – Building Honesty Skills in Leaders
Mark Matheson
Southern Virginia University
This research portrays the characteristics and practices of strongly honest leaders. The leaders showcased in Leader Liars recognize the major impediments to honesty. They identify many actions to guard against these obstacles. You will be able to improve honesty practices in yourself and your organizations.
A Harvard MBA and former Wall Street analyst giving a presentation on honesty is timely. But beyond the platitudes proclaiming a need for a renaissance of honesty in this country, there has been a dearth of research to support how to actually do it.
This presentation will provide you with the ammunition you need as a leader to fight against a growing flood of deception.
Graduating into Complexity- A Playbook from My First Year
April Schrank-Hacker
Leica Biosystems
The world changed in 2020- so did life after graduation. In this presentation, I will share reflections on my first year as a graduate in this new era and present the dissertation research strategy that has helped me navigate the new complex world we live, work, and lead in.
“Book Club” Leadership Development
Leslie Werden, Timothy Sibbel
Morningside College
Members apply to be in ODK based on leadership and academic success shown across campus. Clearly, members have leadership skills, intellectual prowess, athletic abilities, a service mindset, and more. So what do we do to foster leadership development once accepted into the circle? How do we continue to help our members learn and make progress? This workshop will review a sample “Book Club” concept that asks the executive team to select and read a book then create leadership training for the general membership. The workshop will include an overview of one circle’s program then guide participants through idea generation, conceptualization of their own project, and development of an action plan to perform the leadership program within their circle (with options for organizing cross-campus leadership training and/or faculty workshops).
More Than a Title: Articulating Co-Cocurricular Experiences in Interviews
Friday, April 9, 1:30 p.m.
Jamie Bouldin
Stephen F. Austin State University
Student leaders selected to join Omicron Delta Kappa often have enriching experiences in their co-curricular involvement. Since employers are seeking candidates with proven skills in problem solving, team work, written and verbal communication, leadership, and initiative, among others, these experiences offer great stories for students to tell in interviews. However, student leaders must be able to recognize and articulate these skills in the interview process in order to successfully advocate for themselves when seeking internships and jobs. This presentation will outline the skills employers are looking for in recent college graduates, and how involvement that helps qualify students for ODK can provide fertile ground for developing and honing these marketable skills. This interactive presentation will allow participants to identify their own skills and practice articulating those experiences in breakout rooms.
Leadership through a Mindfulness Lens: Sharing Contemplative Practice at the University of Richmond
Jennifer Cable, Steve Bisese
University of Richmond
Our presentation, entitled “Leadership through a Mindfulness lens: Sharing contemplative practice at the University of Richmond,” will highlight the efforts of our liberal arts institution in building a culture of mindfulness on our campus. We will discuss the steps that have been taken, programs presently in place, and offer our vision for what is to come. During the presentation portion of the panel, we will share deeper reflections on campus initiatives that have embraced mindfulness, such as our Faculty Learning Community (FLC) centered on mindfulness, teaching Koru Mindfulness in a variety of ways across our schools, an initiative supporting a partnership between Academics and Athletics that welcomed George Mumford to Richmond for multiple interactions with our community, and our first steps in exploring the topic of mindfulness and race.
How to Find Your Voice When Everyone Is Yelling
Donovan Mack
Gallagher Affinity
Unhealthy hustle habits are a thing of the past in 2020 and navigating through your campus as a leader without a strategy will get you nowhere. This presentation will dive deep into examining personal branding tactics, effective strategies, keeping the same energy, and how turning your mess into a masterpiece will propel you to triumph.
Professional Development
Bouncing Forward: How to RISE and Reframe Your Career With Resilience
Joyel Crawford
Crawford Leadership Strategies
Resiliency is a key leadership skill set to not only manage your career but your life. It’s the ability to transform challenge into opportunity. When done effectively, one can manage setbacks quickly and minimize the physical and mental cost. This course focuses on the role resiliency plays in your work and career life, measuring how resilient you are and providing useful tools to effectively manage instances where you’ll need to bounce back quickly.
How to Unlock Your Personal & Professional Growth with Mentors, Sponsors & Coaches
Matthew Nobles
GE Gas and Power
Maximizing your potential and achieving your highest goals is more easily accomplished with a team of experienced and dedicated supporters on your side. Join this session to gain a better understanding the difference between the roles of Mentor, Sponsor and Coach and how to best utilize each for your personal growth & development. Learn how to identify the right people and connect with them to start building this relationship. And learn how to ensure that the time and energy invested with your mentor, sponsor, and coaches is beneficial for everyone involved. If you act on this information in this session, it will have the power to accelerate your success for life.
LinkedIn: A Gen Z Anomaly
Caralynn Orbell
St. Norbert College
LinkedIn, an excellent professional resource, is an untapped social media platform that is being underutilized by my Gen Z counterparts. We are the social media experts who are failing on this platform! Instead of posting job updates and major career changes, I hope to change the narrative for what LinkedIn is all about.
This presentation will turn LinkedIn from a chore to a hidden gem in professional development. In this presentation, I hope to uncover tips and tricks to change the LinkedIn game for people my age. Let’s get posting, connecting, story-telling, and more!
Letting Your True Colors Shine Wherever You Are!
Michelle Burke
True Colors International
Join the True Colors team for a deeper dive into the True Colors Personality Inventory. Learn about training, certification, and how to bring True Colors to a campus.
Agile Strategy: A Critical Framework for Achieving Organizational Goals in Rapidly Changing Times
Joey Miceli
Amgen Inc.
Strategy is a crucial yet often overlooked component to any collegiate organization’s success. This session will dive deep into the construction of an effective strategic framework and will review analytical methodologies used by Fortune 500 companies the world over. Along the way, case studies will be reviewed to cement learnings and actionable insights shared to make sure each attendee is able to apply this knowledge in the future. After concluding the case studies, the session will close with how a strategic mindset and visionary thinking can be applied post graduation to advance your career and stand out to leadership.
New Norms in the Educational System: the Transition to a Virtual Work/Learning Setting
Shirmel Bell
St. Louis Public School District
This session will include group chats, breakout rooms, and a yes or no section in which participants use the virtual raise hand to engage in a conversation about the transition to the new virtual lifestyle. The format will be an interactive PowerPoint presentation by a first-year special education teacher, and participants will be asked to speak or type about their transition to the virtual learning/work setting and share things they’ve learned as well as new strengths. Participants will then be encouraged to harness these strengths to expand their leadership skills. Real-life experience will be provided as an example of how I was pushed into leadership due to personal and community needs.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity
Using Your Diversity to Promote Equitable Practices in College and Beyond
Priscilla Kucer
Priscilla Kucer Consulting Solutions LLC
Diversity comes in many forms. When working in diverse organizations, there are often several opportunities to promote equity and inclusion. Organizations can be school and non-school workplaces. Despite the type of organization, all employees want to feel included and to have equal access to opportunities within the organization. Advisors can help college students to identify their diversity and help them to develop initiatives that promote equitable practices and inclusion in any organization. This session will provide participants with strategies that they can implement immediately to promote equitable and inclusive practices in college and beyond.
Creating Educational Justice Circles: Dispelling GenZ Myths
Judy Johnson
Azusa Pacific University
GenZ students have been characterized as lacking in personal agency/grit, social skills, and being emotionally fragile This presentation describes the practice of creating small groups as professors, students and multidisciplinary participants working within this educational community in a ‘visioning’ format for discernment of personal call to leadership. The groups focus on practicing vulnerability, accountability and strengthening from the ‘call within’ by answering the question: ‘Are your visions, values, beliefs congruent with your actions?’ It then focuses on ethical decision making for student leaders – training, empowerment and how to create these circles on your campus.
Leading through Universal Design
Jennifer Wilson
Nova Southeastern University
This will be an interactive discussion on how to utilize Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to proactively support diverse leaders attending presentations, programs, or events in blended learning environments.
Participants will be able to:
- Learn about Universal Design for Learning (UDL)
- Learn about and discuss best practices for UDL for presentations, programs, or events in blended learning environments
- Learn about and discuss diverse leaders’ needs in blended learning environments
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion: Essential Competencies for 21st Century Leadership
Betsy Dunn-Williams
Campbell Universtity
As the nation becomes increasingly more diverse, so do our collegiate spaces and the emerging membership of Omicron Delta Kappa. As national discourse around issues of nationality, citizenship, race, sexual orientation, gender, religion, and socioeconomic status continue to find themselves to be tied to some of the most pressing issues of our nation’s history, in the spirit of celebrating and developing leaders of tomorrow, Omicron Delta Kappa recognizes competencies in diversity, equity and<br /> inclusion to be essential for leadership in the 21 st century. Session participants will explore society-driven initiatives for promoting ideals of diversity and inclusion, while also identifying specific actions to further these ideals within their campus and circle.
Rainbow Leadership: Lessons from LGBT Leaders
Eric Wilken
Ball State University
Coming out as LGBTQ+ is often viewed as an act of authenticity. Holding a concealable identity often raises the question of when and how you should disclose this identity to others. It is necessary to understand how coming out opens a leader up to many challenges, but also provides them new ways to develop and engage their followers. This session explores how we can emphasize our different concealable identities when facing leadership challenges to reach our goals. You should expect to come away from this session with a better understanding of the identities that you hold and may not realize, and how to be a leader, in a variety of contexts, while also being yourself.
Creating a Learning Atmosphere Campus-wide that Strives to Serve All Students
Zahkar Berkovich
University at Albany
Join this interactive workshop that will help you identify your assumptions, define deficit thinking, learn more about yourself, and help you identify steps that can be taken going forward to make our community more inclusive. Deficit thinking can limit our ability to discover greater diversity and equity in our work and learning spaces. This workshop will offer definition and provide space for a productive conversation around this topic. Through engaging exercises and dialogue participants will come up with at least one goal and one step that can be done to create a welcoming university community that engages all of its diversity in the service of all and continuous organizational learning.
Circle Development
Discussion, Debate, and Dialogue: Engaging to Understand
Benjamin Williams
Georgia State University
In our current climate, it is more important than ever that we understand how to engage with each other and work to understand what informs how various individuals see the world. As a leader in your circle, on campus, and in your community, you can model the way to effectively engage in important and challenging topics. This interactive session will introduce you to Intergroup Dialogue and how the tool can be used to break down how to engage to understand viewpoints and find common ground in challenging moments.
Build the Empire | Rule the Campus
G.C. Murray, II
GCM Law, LLC.
Your ability to breathe new life into your Circle through strategic recruitment is what allows your Circle to thrive and your legacy to live on past your graduation. Join this session if you want to begin building the Circle by which all others will be measured! During this session, we will discuss the global concepts of recruitment, create achievable goals for your Circle, and illuminate the many benefits of having a dynamic Circle. The session will also include a question and answer portion so attendees can get specific content that would be most useful for building the empire and ruling the campus.
5 Questions Every Circle Should Ask About Programming
Matthew Hibdon, Susan Lyons
Middle Tennessee State University
Are you ready to “re-Zoom” your regularly scheduled circle programming? Does your team look like everyone is frozen or on mute whenever you are trying to think of a program for your circle? Bad Zoom puns aside, programming is one of the most rewarding and frustrating things for a circle. Even in “the before times,” finding the right type of programming was difficult for many circles. It’s never too late to get creative about how to serve your members, campus, and/or community, both during the pandemic and when some normalcy resumes in our lives. There are five essential questions your circle should ask about its current programming or about new programs that are being considered. Join our session to learn about what programming can and should do for your circle.
Expanding Our Circles
David Rekhtam
University of Maryland – College Park
Jacqueline Ford
University of Maryland – College Park
In response to the renewed social justice movements of 2020, we knew it was important to analyze our proceedings and processes to ensure that they promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. Through this presentation, we hope to share how our circle has advanced these principles and engaged in a discussion that all circles could benefit from. For our circle, we formed a working group of passionate leaders within the circle who were able to advise the executive board on necessary changes. The main two areas of focus were recruitment and selection.
To increase the breadth and depth of communities and students we were able to reach on campus, the Sigma Circle has focused on rebranding our organization so that we are fully promoting our pillars through being diverse, equitable, and inclusive leaders. For example, we are directly reaching out to a more diversified pool of leaders with promotional material that are more effective in communicating the ideals and mission of our organization.
How to Achieve and Maintain an Engaged and Healthy Circle
Timothy A. Reed
Omicron Delta Kappa
The 3rd decade of the 21st Century is presenting challenges to the health of our circle. Is your circle as active and healthy as it should be? Taking care of your circle is important no matter its age. Come explore ways to improve circle well-being even in the age of Zoom malaise. We will examine the importance of meeting times, strengthening your core recruitment efforts, having a balanced membership roster from across the 5 phases, and collaborating with leaders throughout your campus and community. We will help you conduct a circle check-up and create a plan to make your circle healthier and stronger. No co-pays are required for this interactive check-up with Dr. Tim Reed from the O∆K National Headquarters.
Copyright © 2021. All Rights Reserved.
O∆K is a member of the Honor Society Caucus.
Omicron Delta Kappa National Headquarters
224 McLaughlin Street
Lexington, Virginia 24450-2002
1-877-ODK-NHDQ (635-6437)
odknhdq@odk.org
Privacy Policy
Diversity, Equal Opportunity, and Hazing Statements