Kappa Delta Pi, the national honors society for education majors, hosted their first “Educating for Empowerment” conference on Feb. 1 in Visser Hall.
“Our advisors approached us last spring about the idea of doing this conference as our fundraiser,” Lauren Taphorn, junior elementary education and Spanish major, said. “We started planning in fall, but (our advisors) are the ones who brought in all the speakers.”
Members of Kappa Delta Pi were required to handle the advertising of the event. The speakers were Stephanie Byers, national educator of the year by GLSEN, and Dorthey Stucky Halley, LMSW victim services division director.
“I belong to an organization called Kansas Learning First Alliance and (Stucky Halley) was a speaker at that,” said Melissa Reed, professor and co-counselor for the international honors society. “I realized her message (about human trafficking) was really important for educators.”
There were many tables on the main floor of Visser Hall where groups for educators found on campus and throughout Emporia offered information about their organizations. Among these groups was SOS.
“Jillian Jasinski (freshman elementary education major) emailed our marketing office and passed the information about this event on to me,” said Sakina Aga, sexual assault and advocator coordinator at SOS. “The conference is somewhat small and intimate, but we have had a lot of people interested in what SOS does.”