LBCC’s Extended Opportunity Program and Services hosted their annual student success conference with various workshops to help empower students in their personal and academic lives. This year’s conference theme was “Lift Every Voice”.
“This year’s theme was about speaking your voice, how to be your own advocate, and how to develop your own leadership skills through these platforms,” said Edward Henderson, Director of EOPS.
The EOPS program provides students with social, economic, educational, or language disadvantages.
Through the Whova app, where the conference was hosted, there was chat zoom, a list of attendees, and a community room where students and staff can plan meet-ups to help the community.
There were multiple workshops and speakers available at the conference.
“This program does curate to Cal State and UC levels, I tell students all the time if lucky they can go with (EOP), and be with them, their whole academic career so it’s a really good program there’s a lot of perks and services we get out, bags, our conference, banquets we do, priority registration is some of the perks we have,“ said Steve Navarro, an EOPS staff.
EOPS gave their students packages filled with tools to help them through the conference.
This conference package consisted of an EOPS blanket, a notebook, pen, a water cup and snacks.
One of the workshops was called “Nourish to Flourish”, which focused on enhancing and prioritizing self-care and self-love, hosted by Brianna Reyes, a Mental Health Clinician.
Some self-care tips they gave were ways to improve our physical and mental health in order to keep surviving everyday challenges.
They also talked about the way stress can affect us. They described how it is a natural way for our bodies to let us know that something is wrong and how we can change that negative tone towards stress and the relationship we have with it.
Some of the other workshops that were offered were as follows:
- SAY GAY! Supporting Queer and Trans Folks in the Current Climate
- What are Microaggressions?
- Uplifting Student Advocacy in Voting
- Undocumented Hustle
- Fostering Care Positive Self-Esteem for Children and Youth
There was also a workshop where students and staff could drop in to talk to counselors if they had any questions or concerns.
“We are a club in a sense but we are backed up by financial aid so we get a lot of support in the funding so we are able to give back”, said Navarro.
There were over 170 attendees that took part in the conference and at the end of the conference, there was a photo contest where the top liked photo would win gift cards.
The conference is open to EOPS students only, and it is encouraged for students to join the program in order to get their services and be part of next year’s conference.
For information on how to enroll in EOPS, you can go to https://www.lbcc.edu/extended-opportunity-programs-and-services.