Tucker Paschen, the 2019-2020 Mississippi State Student Leader, Attended The Mississippi/Alabama State Workshop last weekend. This is what he had to say about the experience in Livingston, Alabama:
This year’s MS/AL Workshop took place January 31-February 1. The workshop had fifty-three attendees from ten different institutions. The workshop started off with facility and campus tours of the host institution, the University of West Alabama. After the tours, the groups split into their respective states to conduct their state meetings. Updates were given from each institution and Mississippi’s meeting discussed their options for next year’s host. The workshop continued with a fantastic keynote presentation from Jason Levasseur. Jason is an artist/speaker from Nashville, TN. Jason did a wonderful job of getting everyone engaged and helped to make connections.
Saturday morning the workshop continued with educational sessions. There were six presentations, five of which were given by students. This was a great opportunity for students to grow professionally and to share their knowledge with others. There were many first-time NIRSA event attendees at this workshop, mostly students, so having the opportunity to learn from fellow students was a huge success. The presentations covered topics including helping intramural officials progress to collegiate officiating, growing our programs through collaboration, information to aid undergraduate students as they continue their careers, E-sports, and basic electronic training. The workshop also included three roundtable discussions where areas were able to collaborate with others in their specific area.
For those that attended it was a worthwhile weekend filled with learning, networking, and student development. Looking forward to next year’s workshop, the idea of moving the event to later in the calendar year was proposed in an effort to increase numbers. This is a worthwhile event that we want to make available to as many people and institutions as possible.
Tucker, pictured on the left, with Jason LeVasseur, the workshop’s Keynote Speaker
Pictured from left to right: Tucker Paschen (University of Southern Mississippi), Kelvin Doss Jr (University of Southern Mississippi), Juliana Frigerio (University of Alabama), and Abbie Dupont (Mississippi State University)
