Facing the Future at MC 

By: Dustin Looney
Features Editor

On Saturday, April 14, a conference called Facing the Future was held in the basement of the Stockdale Center at Monmouth College.

The conference lasted from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and was free and open to any Monmouth College student who was interested in improving his or her career development skills. Each student had to sign-up prior to the conference on the Internet.

Facing the Future is a program which strives to better prepare Monmouth College students for their future careers.

The program was created by Bill Wallace, professor of communication and theatre arts, and Michelle Shawgo, Wackerle career development director.

Facing the Future was organized by the students of a class at Monmouth College, CATA 491: Freedom of Expression, which all communication majors are required to take during their senior year. This was the first year the class put on the conference, which included many guest speakers.

Many of the speakers were affiliated with Monmouth College and they all gave valuable advice to students in attendance about how they could prepare themselves for the job market and life after college in general.

Notable speakers at the conference included Jane Jakoubek, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty, James Bovinet, associate professor of political economy and commerce, and Chris Gavin, president and CEO of Midwest Bank.

Refreshments were also served to all people in attendance at the conference.

According to Monmouth College junior Heather Prater, the program was an immense success and all the speakers shared much valuable knowledge. The conference had 80 students register to participate. Prater estimated that around 70 students showed up to the event, which was higher than anticipated for the first year.

The students of the CATA 491 class were responsible for organizing the entire event and Prater served as a team leader and setup all the speakers and refreshments for the program. Other members of Prater’s group included Adrienne Lockwood, Brooke Morgan and Drew Robinson.

Ashley Cook of Mundelein was the team leader of the other group, which also included seniors Dejuan Listenbee, Laura Jahn, Sarah Pickrel and Zachary Steffan. Cook’s group was responsible for designing logos and distributing advertisements for the event.

“Overall the Facing the Future conference was a huge success,” an enthusiastic Prater said.