On March 3, Riverside Brookfield High School had the honor of hosting the Upstate Eight Leadership Conference for the first time.
The conference invited students from Upstate Eight Conference (UEC) schools that have demonstrated academic excellence, achievement, or partook in various leadership roles.
“It is a leadership conference for the Upstate Eight, and it is just a great opportunity for all these schools to get together,” said senior Lucy Drenth, RB Student Association (SA) president.. “We compete with them, we work with them a lot, and to be able to meet with them in a way that is outside of a sports field or a competitive field and to be able to learn from each other is pretty cool.“
The UEC is a collection of 14 high schools throughout Northeastern Illinois, spanning ten different suburbs.
“We are part of a new conference in general [this year],” said RB math teacher and SA sponsor Kevin Dybas. “It is the Upstate Eight, which is the same as with athletics. It is the first year in this conference that we will be hosting the leadership conference. We have gone to and attended other leadership conferences. Even just earlier this year we went to one that was at Lyons Township, and we brought ten students with us. It is honestly just a rotation where schools rotate hosting different events, so this was our year to be hosting.”
This year’s UEC leadership conference brought students together from 12 schools in the area to participate in leadership training and collaboration after hearing from guest speaker Eddie Slowikowski, a former NCAA All-American runner. This event provides the opportunity for students to collaborate and share ideas on how to improve the environment and programs at their schools.
“I really always hope at any of these types of events that everybody [can] walk out with at least one thing that they could take home and say, ‘This is something that I want to either do, or this is what inspired me’— just like that one takeaway,” Dybas said. “It might be different for each person. Maybe they are going to get some idea of how to do homecoming or other activities that they run. Some of the things that we do here at RB are inspired from conferences like this, where we hear what another school does and we get motivated by that.”
Although this year’s conference was run by many senior RB students, especially those in SA, it will be the responsibility of the underclassmen to implement the ideas taken from the conference into the next school year.
“It is generally targeted to freshmen through juniors because the seniors are going to be gone next year,” Dybas said. “While we still think it is beneficial for them to explore, they wouldn’t be using those skills here. It is generally freshman through juniors so that they can have an opportunity to use those leadership skills.”
This conference is not only an opportunity for students to collaborate and share their ideas on how to increase school spirit and involvement, but also to learn how to work with people from various schools and backgrounds.
“I think it is important because being able to communicate with others at the same age, maybe in different areas or different schools, is really important in terms of students being able to communicate with peers and collaborate with others that you don’t normally work with,” Drenth said. “I guess it is a good skill, and to be able to do it in this setting is a unique opportunity.”
