pacific nw transportation consortium region 10 Pactrans

This past January, PacTrans had the distinct opportunity sponsor the Oregon-State-University-ITE-student-chapter-hosted Western District Student Leadership Summit in Corvallis, OR. This, the fifth annual student leadership summit of the Western District, was a three-day event that included over 120 student from twenty-five different schools from the Western District and two students form U-Mass Amherst, who are preparing to host their first Student Leadership Summit in April, and professionals from several industry firms. The summit focused on leadership, networking, and professional development through a variety of small group and panel discussions, talks, and professional development workshops.

A key component of the Student Leadership Summit was the group project that focused on how ITE student leaders can successfully develop their chapter. Dr. Scott Paja, Assistant Dean at Oregon State University, introduced concepts from motivational theory to encourage officers to reframe how student chapters market ITE to fellow students.

Afterwards, students worked with one another to develop posters highlighting ideas, strategies, and challenges ITE chapters face with fundraising, member recruitment and retention, outreach, and professional development. Working on creating this project and listening to the project presentations helped members to gain new insights from other student chapters on new strategies that could be integrated back at home in their our chapters. This includes ideas like reaching out to multiple departments, like urban planning or computer science, that might be interested in attending some ITE sponsored events. These ideas can be easily implemented to broaden our visibility and reach new members as ITE student chapters grow and mature.

Throughout the conference, students had many opportunities to talk with other student chapter leaders and even transportation professionals that were also attending the conference. Panel and small group discussions talked about both professional development and leadership development with current ITE Western District members. Workshops for attendees also focused on reviewing resumes and getting practical feedback on interview skills. This was a unique opportunity to connect with transportation students in ITE from multiple schools and to further support the growth of our student chapter.

PacTrans sponsorship included financial support for the event space, door prizes, and travel support to two UW ITE Student Chapter representative to attend the summit.