Webster Students Attend First St. Louis UNA Leadership Summit

For the first time, Webster University sent students to the United Nations Association (UNA) of the United States of America Leadership Summit, held in St. Louis from Nov. 14-16.

Since this is the conference’s first year being held in St. Louis, Webster’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences sponsored several attendees, covering the cost for students interested in pursuing work related to the UN and global advocacy.

“As an international relations major, I’m always looking for opportunities to get involved in the St. Louis community,” sophomore attendee Kelsey Kozuszek said. “Sometimes it can be discouraging just because I feel like often national events can look over St. Louis.”

The theme of this year’s conference, “Meeting the Moment – Our Moment,” prompted participants to take action and make their voices heard. Kozuszek said attending felt especially timely given Missouri’s political climate.

“I just think it’s really important, in Missouri especially, to engage in these kinds of cross-cultural and even potentially uncomfortable political conversations,” Kozuszek said. “Being a blue city in a red state and engaging in this and also acknowledging that St. Louis can be considered at the forefront of these important events.”

The three-day conference included breakout sessions, keynote speakers and hands-on service projects for attendees to get involved with.

“I know that there’s a lot of emphasis put on student advocacy, which is great, but I also think in order to get to that point, it’s really important to hear from experts in the field and from people who are actively doing the work every day,” Kozuszek said.

The first session on Friday was Career Connex, a professional development session designed for career exploration. Attendees had the opportunity to meet professionals from the UN system.

Juliet Osoro, a Webster student who plans on going into the international law field, said the opportunity to learn from others motivated her attendance.

“I want to connect with people who attend, so I can learn from them and see how I can grow my career and how I can help my community,” Osoro said.

Not only were attendees able to meet professionals, but they also got to interact with and learn from one another. The Diplomatic Reception on Friday and the Affinity Group Meetups on Saturday allowed for attendees to speak with fellow advocates as well as UNA leaders.

“I’m interested in knowing more about leadership, especially from the young people like me — people with a very different perspective on how they can help people and how they can be a voice to people who don’t have a voice and how they can make a change globally,” Osoro said.

Following the conference, the Webster-sponsored students will be giving a presentation on what they learned at the summit to their peers. The date and location of the presentation is to be announced.