The 34th annual Big XII conference on Black Student Government featured speaker Soledad O’Brien on Friday at Jesse Auditorium.

O’Brien, an award winning and nationally recognized CNN correspondent and anchor, was the third of six keynote speakers scheduled during the three-day conference. O’Brien was chosen as a keynote speaker because she embodied the leadership message and C.O.L.O.R.S. (Coalition of Leaders Organizing Radical Segues) theme of the conference, said Lisa White, Conference Committee chairwoman and Legion of Black Collegians President.

“Soledad really spoke about leadership in a way that no one else has,” White said. “The conference is a conference on leadership and Soledad did a great job talking about leadership through her own personal experiences.”

O’Brien, who comes from a multi-racial background, really identifies with the black community, Planning Committee member Lakeisha Williams said.

“O’Brien’s mom is African-American and Latino, and her dad is Australian,” Williams said. “She has done two ‘Black in America’ series and has also done a ‘Latino in America’ series. She definitely relates to and appealed to the type of audience we had.”

O’Brien’s audience was a mixture of multiple races and academic majors, but her presentation had a mixture of journalism and race and minorities to cater to the audience, Williams said.

“Based off of hearing her speak, I think she did a perfect job to speaking to the audience that was interested in journalism and the audience that was there for the conference,” she said.

Kristen Andrews, Conference Committee Social chairwoman and LBC Activities chairwoman, said she is a psychology major, but really enjoyed O’Brien’s presentation.

“It was really great to have her here to speak and not only for journalism majors,” Andrews said. “(O’Brien) really took the conference up ten notches. I’m not saying any other speaker at the conference is on a lower scale, Soledad is just on such a huge stage, and it really was great to have her speak at the conference.”

Williams said students responded in a positive way towards O’Brien’s presentation.

“Even just looking on Twitter during the conference, there were so many people tweeting and re-tweeting things (O’Brien) said and commenting on how inspirational she was,” Williams said.

Williams also said students that were able to attend the reception with O’Brien following her presentation were very appreciative of her speech.

“Even when (O’Brien) was leaving in her car there was still a group of students trying to take a picture with her,” she said. “There was a really overwhelming response. I think everyone appreciated her presence and everything that she had to say.”

The conference will continue through Saturday with keynote speakers Mark Alnutt, DeAngela Burns-Wallace and Terry McMillan.