Loyola Hosts Student Diversity Leadership Conference Loyola College welcomed more than 75 students from independent high schools in Maryland and Delaware for the Student Diversity Leadership Conference on Friday, Feb. 9. The students, leaders in efforts to improve diversity awareness in their own schools, spent the day attending lectures, workshops and a spoken word poetry performance focused on the theme “Desire, Discipline, Education: Service Through Leadership.” While Student Diversity conferences occur each year at sites across the country, this is the first year Loyola has hosted an event. “Having the conference here works well because it brings the ideas of Student Diversity to Loyola, but also allows students from private schools who usually apply to colleges outside of Baltimore to experience Loyola,” says Christopher Nelson, ’08, who helped coordinate the conference and presented a workshop on dedication. In addition to Nelson’s presentation, the students enjoyed a group breakfast and motivational lecture, followed by a presentation on desire by Rodney Glasgow, director of Diversity and Community Relations at Worcester Academy in Worcester, MA. Glasgow, a graduate of Baltimore’s Gilman School, has been involved in Student Diversity programs for 12 years, and currently serves as co-Chair of the National Student Diversity Leadership Conference, a program sponsored by the National Association of Independent Schools. The Conference also featured a presentation by the Loyola College Office of Admissions, which co-sponsored the event with ALANA Student Services and the Office of Academic Affairs and Diversity, as well as a performance by The Fifth L, a spoken-word poetry group. Terrell Winder, a senior at Baltimore County’s McDonogh School, led the event’s final workshop, a discussion of discipline and its importance in leadership roles and responsibilities. Winder is President of McDonough’s Black Awareness Club and co-leader of its Multicultural Club. The program concluded with an opportunity for the students to join as a group to reflect on the conference’s messages. Like many events planned at Loyola for this academic year, the Conference was inspired in part by the College’s ongoing Year of the City initiative, designed to reaffirm Loyola’s relationship with Baltimore, celebrate the city’s history and culture and to consider the role a Jesuit institution of higher education should play in addressing the challenges faced by the City today. | 
