ESA Collegiate Leadership Conference in Illinois a huge success

On October 3, Collegiate ESA members of Chapters at Bradley University, Augustana College, and Illinois State University gathered in the beautiful alumni center on the Illinois State University campus in Normal, IL for a spectacular day at a special collegiate Epsilon Sigma Alpha leadership conference. More than 100 members, including nearly 40 pledges were welcomed by co-host chapter presidents Erin Micklos of Bradley University and Kaileigh James of Illinois State University.

ESA headquarters Membership Director, Tracy Swanson, shared with the students many different things, including ESA’s proud 80 year history, the ESA Foundation, national projects, and news from the larger ESA family. Next, a very popular and animated brainstorming “idea swap” session allowed the students to share project and chapter management ideas in small groups. They then challenged themselves to kick it up a notch by layering on ways projects and activities could be even more successful by including others outside of ESA.

Student members packed care packages for deployed troops as a Hope for Heroes project.  Guests International Council President Jamie Atchison, Junior past president Judy Huntley, IC collegiate coordinator Dale Huntley, and recent ESA collegiate graduates Adrienne Wilson and Laura Lascano shared their personal stories of what it means to be part of the love of the ESA family throughout the years. Laura and Adrienne also shared the exciting news of a new community ESA chapter being chartered by them and some of their fellow Collegiate ESA alumni in the Chicago area this year and invited all the seniors in the audience to consider joining once they graduate.

The day concluded with filming videos, learning and sharing ESA cheers, and making new friends, “we got so many great ideas and it was really neat meeting members from other chapters, our chapter is going to love all these new fundraising and social ideas we have! I am also friends with a lot of the members on other campuses on Facebook now, so it will be really easy to keep in touch with them to share ideas and build our ESA bonds,” explains Mary O’Malley, Chapter at Augustana College. 

Dale loves working with collegiate ESA, “all our student members are amazing. They know what they want to achieve and set high goals. I enjoy supporting them any way I can, and especially love letting them run with the ball and watching them achieve so much,” shares Dale.