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2006 C.O.O.L. Idealist National Conference: It's What the Cool Kids Did
By Amy Cheung

As one enthused participant exclaimed to Felecia Bartow, Idealist's Director of Campus Programs, "It was the coolest conference ever!" And with over 1,500 students, administrators, and nonprofit representatives, it was also our largest conference to date. Early registration and preliminary events on Thursday night kicked off the conference at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, and events continued throughout the weekend of March 3-5.

Friday morning saw hundreds of people walking around Vanderbilt's Student Life Center, registering, attending poster sessions, picking up information and enjoying breakfast. Within the organized chaos, volunteers from the Student Planning Committee helped the Idealist team to make the process run smoothly, giving directions to the Friday Forum locations and answering questions. This year, Idealist offered 13 Friday Forums covering topics ranging from campus administration to making a year of service work for you. These forums corresponded to "tracks" that were also used to categorize workshops, but participants could attend events in any track. Notre Dame student Sara Snider, for example, presented a workshop and poster session on leadership but also attended Oxfam's forum "Make Trade Fair: A Global Student Movement to Alleviate Poverty." In a perfect pairing of leadership and mission, she wants to generate more undergraduate support for fair trade coffee on her campus when she returns.

The official start to the conference came Friday night, as Student Planning Committee Director Stacy Tolos and Idealist On Campus Student Advisory Board member Aram Nadjarian treated the audience to a comedy routine. Aram even offered to tap dance, but unfortunately, that offer fizzled after we saw a stunning performance by the Blue Moves Modern Dance Company. We also heard from student keynote speaker Kamaria Porter, a senior at the University of Notre Dame, and from Medea Benjamin, founding director of Global Exchange and co-founder of CODEPINK: Women for Peace. After the opening ceremony, some participants found the energy to learn salsa and hip-hop dance while others chose more laidback activities such as a screening and lecture by the director of the documentary "Picture This: A Fight to Save Joe."

Students, administrators and nonprofit representatives networked informally during events and at mealtimes, but attendees also participated in several formal networking sessions during the weekend. Some of the more formal networking occurred during the Opportunities Fairs, at which representatives from more than 50 nonprofit and socially-responsible corporate sponsors set up tables with pamphlets, flyers and other promotional materials as they talked with participants about their organizations. Conference attendees learned about AmeriCorps, Amnesty International, Jewish Organizing Initiative, Better World Books, Participant Productions, and the George B. Warren School of Social Work at Washington University, among many other diverse causes and groups. Conference attendees handed out resumes, networked their hearts out, learned about new and interesting organizations, and even managed to enter an iPod raffle or two. By the end of the Fair, it was clear that sponsoring organizations and attendees alike gained new knowledge and made many new connections.

Chances for more informal networking were provided during the networking breakfasts, at which people could talk to representatives over a meal. Additional conversations among participants started after workshops, in the lunchlines, in the restroom lines, and even on the airport shuttle. Those not presenting workshops or poster sessions had many other opportunities to talk about their campus efforts and share ideas with other students and administrators.

The more than 150 workshops offered over the course of the weekend gave participants many opportunities to learn about new topics or to learn more about familiar ones while giving presenters the opportunity to share their experiences and recruit future volunteers. In a workshop about the DREAM Act, for example, representatives from the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) and from the Center for Community Change shared personal accounts of how this proposed legislation could help thousands of undocumented immigrant students who want to attend college and what we can all do to help. The lively discussion that followed their presentation saw audience members eager to share their own stories and to lobby their representatives in Congress. Amanda Sonis Glynn, an administrator from Harvard University, was particularly interested in the presentation as she has worked closely with immigrant students in the past.

Blending passion and work was a common theme in many sessions - including "Through Sport and Song: Innovative Approaches to Development in Uganda" presented by Trevor Dudley, Greg Barz, and Meredith Bates. Dudley has turned a kids' soccer club in Kinshasa into his life's work, operating clubs in cities throughout the country, and Greg Barz's experience in Uganda came as a result of his ethnographic research on AIDS/HIV and music. Many were moved by the plenary, but it held special significance for year of service member John Diek, a former student of Barz's. For Diek, the presenters' ability to pursue jobs that effect positive social change reaffirmed his own commitment to working with youth.

Later Saturday night, 300 people participated in the Oxfam Hunger Banquet—a program in which a small percentage of attendees leave with a full stomach while the vast majority goes hungry. Designed to mirror the distribution of food and wealth around the world, this event saw the "middle-class" seated in chairs eating rice and beans, the "poor" seated on the floor eating only rice and a small group of the "rich" eating a hearty meal at a table set with linen and china. Attendees heard a pre-recorded speech by Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and director of the UN Millennium Project, who spoke about the dire need for agricultural improvements in Africa, as well as concrete steps that young people can take to reduce poverty and hunger worldwide. After Sachs' address, participants shared their thoughts and experiences with each other. While there was no consensus on how best to combat hunger in the developing world, participants heard varying viewpoints on relief aid, long-term aid, and the unequal distribution of both.

Sadly, as with all good things, the conference had to end. Idealist staff member Jake Brewer and Idealist On Campus Student Advisory Board member Emily Vogtmann emceed the closing ceremony, during which the audience heard from the likes of local singer-songwriter Natalie Stovall and keynote speakers Sarah Moros, a senior at Yale University, and Patrick Guerriero, President of the Log Cabin Republicans and the Liberty Education Forum. Sarah's speech echoed another theme of this year's conference: keeping one's passion for activism alive in the long-term. Based on the commitment video shot throughout the conference and screened at the closing, this newest group of C.O.O.L. Idealist alums already possesses both the passion and dedication to make the world a better place…both in the short- and the long-term.

We hope that the 22nd Annual C.O.O.L. Idealist National Conference gave you some ideas to take back to your campuses and your communities and that you will join us next year from March 23-25 at DePaul University in Chicago!