Today’s Morning Buzz is by Kirsten Wyatt.
- What I’m Reading: The Kremlin’s Candidate (I have until midnight to read 150 pages before my digital loan expires – wish me luck.)
- What I’m Listening To: All of the great song ideas for the #ELGL19 playlist – tweet your ideas to Adria Finch!
- What I’m Watching: Schitt’s Creek
Last Friday was the last #ELGLInspire event of the 2018-19 school year. I wanted to share some statistics and reflections on the first year of these programs in today’s Morning Buzz blog:
- We hosted events on 10 college campuses during this school year.
- 527 students attended the events.
- We had 169 speakers representing all aspects of local government careers and degree programs.
- We published 184 blog posts about the Inspire events and speakers.
The real impact of these events can’t be summarized in statistics, though. I’m going to get cheesy now, so bear with me:
Each #ELGLInspire event lived up to its name and provided a burst of inspiration about why we get into local government work. Learning from the diverse speakers about their paths to public service, hearing about the impactful projects they manage or the meaningful programming they provide was like a breath of fresh air, especially during a time period where the rancor and frustration with politicians at the state and federal levels is at an all time high.
Watching students lock in and engage with speakers about career paths they previously hadn’t considered, and realize that they can make a career out of helping others and building communities, was one of the highlights of my year.
For a long time, the local government profession has talked about how we can get college students excited about public service careers. And so it was also really fun to watch a program that we piloted, take off with so much energy and excitement from campuses and practitioners. It felt like we were truly scratching an itch by launching the #ELGLInspire series.
There are a lot of people to thank for making the 10 events a success, most notably the on-campus liaisons who coordinated logistics, helped with agendas, and managed marketing and outreach to students.
From the ELGL team, these events wouldn’t have happened without these stars:
- Zach Navin, for managing #ELGLInspire events in Ohio, Illinois, and Wisconsin.
- Madison Thesing, for managing #ELGLInspire blog content.
- Kim Pendergraft, for managing TCMA’s commitment to bringing #ELGLInspire events to Texas.
- Noor Shaikh, for piloting the concept and fine tuning the agenda to make it a replicable success.
We will soon share information about how you can bring an #ELGLInspire program to a campus near you in the 2019-20 school year. We’ve committed to hosting eight in the new school year, with a particular focus on hosting on community college campuses, at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and in states that have not yet hosted an #ELGLInspire event.
Thank you to the ELGL community for supporting the #ELGLInspire concept and programming. It was a delight to share this program, and we look forward to a new school year of more programs designed to inspire local government careers.