The Legion of Black Collegians won two awards at the 34th Annual Big XII Conference on Black Student Government, held Feb. 24 through Feb. 27.
The conference is a chance for members from both Big 12 schools and non-Big 12 schools’ black student governments to interact and meet each other. This year, 45 schools were in attendance.
Multiple awards were given out to the black student governments present at the conference.
One of the two awards won by the LBC was given to the Freshman Action Team, which works to bring together black freshmen on campus.
“It gives them something to be immediately involved in,” LBC spokeswoman Ashley Edwards said. “It gets them acclimated in the LBC and helps form them into members.”
F.A.T. was required to submit a booklet, showcasing the events they held throughout first semester and mini-biographies about each freshman.
The second award given to the LBC was Outstanding Big XII Council of the Year. The LBC compiled a booklet, much like F.A.T., created a movie to give background and history of the organization and filled out an application for a scholarship, which was awarded to the entire organization.
“The main purpose of the conference is to provide student leaders with substantial skills in which they can use to better themselves as leaders, as well as use to enhance their respective organizations,” Big XII Steering Committee member Lakeisha Williams said.
The conference included workshops, a career fair, keynote speakers and multiple social events. The workshops ranged from focusing on women and their role in the world to males and how to be a better black male leader.
Edwards said her favorite part of the conference was seeing Soledad O’Brien speak.
“She was absolutely amazing,” Edwards said. “She was inspirational and she knew her audience. She knew that we were young people, and she knew our struggles of undergrad and she related it all to us.”
“It’s important to have these kinds of conferences because there are issues unique to being a black student leader that deserve to be adequately addressed,” Williams said.
LBC President Lisa White said her favorite part of the conference was everyone else’s enjoyment. White said the hardest part was transporting all of the students to and from the hotel without any problems.
Next year, the conference will be held at the University of Oklahoma.
“We’ve already received calls for help,” Edwards said. “They have already gotten started, so it’s really nice to hear they aren’t procrastinating on this.”
Edwards said her hopes for the conference next year is to get more students to attend.
“It’s always hard to get people to pay and register for something when they are staying where they are,” Edwards said. “Since we are going away, I think we will get more people to register.”