By Remy McCool/reporter
South Campus’ African-American Student Organization was given the student organization spotlight from the Southwestern Black Student Leadership Conference Jan. 18 at Texas A&M University.
Mathematics professor Natalie Johnson and continuing education director Alisa Jones serve as advisers for ASSO.
“The recognition was for organizations and how they use what they learned in their conference and brought back to their community,” Johnson said.
The conference drew in more than 600 students representing 50 community colleges and four-year universities.
In preparation for the conference, AASO submitted a video showing actions the students took on campus that display the leadership skills they learned from the previous conference.
“I can take the part of leading with students to aspire them and put myself forward to help people grow around me,” said AASO vice president Donaille Williams.
AASO president Shondrell Gardner said he learned how to better trust others and give direction.
“It helped me understand how to be a better leader within campus life and as well as my personal life,” he said.
The video showcased events AASO created to reach out to its campus and communities. The students teamed up with AIDS Outreach Center to provide HIV testing on campus, catered to more than 100 people at a local nursing home and adopted an angel from the Hulen Mall Christmas tree and bought gifts for the child.
“These are all things they learned at the conference like how to come back and be a leader on campus,” Jones said.
Upon returning from last year’s conference, the South group put on its own mini-versions of the seminars the students had attended at the conference. However, instead of bringing in presenters, they were the presenters.
“I feel really good at the end of the day because I think about the amount of the work that we do here on campus from what we did last year,” Gardner said.
AASO will have a leadership conference April 11 on South Campus with Cedric James, former Dallas Cowboys football player, as the keynote speaker. All members of AASO will participate as presenters, and the event will be open to all TCC students.
