NORFOLK, Va. — The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) held their annual meeting on November 11-12, 2016, at The Westin in Virginia Beach, Va.
Student-athletes from all 13 MEAC member institutions came together to gain insight on professional development and engage in community outreach.
The event kicked off Friday with a discussion on financial literacy from Yvonne Allmond, the Senior Vice President for Towne Bank, as part of their 2016-17 initiative.
On Saturday, the students engaged in a panel discussion with MEAC administrators, including Sterling Steward, Jr., Director of Athletics at Savannah State; Julius Scott, Assistant Athletics Director for Compliance/Game Operations at Savannah State; Mary Hill, Senior Associate Athletic Director for Internal Operations/Senior Woman Administrator (SWA) at Delaware State and Dr. Carray Banks, Faculty Athletic Representative at Norfolk State. The panelists discussed how they started their careers after college and how their current roles can benefit the student-athletes.
“It’s important that the students hear from us all the time,” Hill said. “Coming to events like this gives the students an opportunity to know that we care and we’re they’re biggest cheerleaders.”
After the panel, several student-athletes showed an interest in pursuing a career in collegiate athletic administration.
During lunch, Sonja Stills, MEAC Senior Associate Commissioner/SWA, gave the student-athletes a chance to ask questions regarding the future of the conference.
The second half of the day was dedicated to community service. Each MEAC SAAC representative brought a toy for the iHeartRadio and Ricky Johnson & Friends Foundation Toy Drive.
Following the toy drive, the student-athletes learned how they can take part in community service on their campuses.
Dorian Edwards, Campus Coordinator for Project Life Movement and former student-athlete, spoke to the group on how they can host events to increase the potential pool of bone marrow and tissue donors by testing and registering fellow students.
After SAAC updates from campus representatives, the student-athletes heard from David Doan, Vice President of Strategic Alliances at the American Cancer Society (ACS).
Doan allowed the student-athletes to break into teams and come up with unique program ideas for the ACS to use on college campuses. Hampton representative Treliah Samuels said this was her favorite activity because Doan was very receptive to the student-athlete’s ideas.
The meeting ended with a “We are MEAC” community outreach video shoot that brought the group even closer together. The video will be released by the conference in December, in correlation with Human Rights Day, as a part of increasing awareness for its diversity/inclusion initiative.