Sharing your knowledge

Welcome to September! The first indicators of fall are now creeping into view. Leaves are beginning to turn vibrant colors, the air is starting to exhibit that familiar nip, and our students have begun classes on our campuses. Most of us have already finished onboarding and training for our staff, sharing knowledge to make our spaces and programs fun, safe, and positive.

Perhaps you have been meeting resounding success in your programs and training processes, or maybe your team has incorporated ideas that have brought improvements to your spaces. Have you ever thought about sharing your success with your peers, though? Perhaps presenting at your state or provincial workshops, regional conferences, and the NIRSA Conference & Campus Rec Expo is in your future.

The Professional Take

Fall tends to be the backdrop for regional conference and workshop season, and our local learning events provide fantastic opportunities to network within our states, provinces, and regions. They're also excellent platforms to present data, share training, advance ideas, and expound theory for others to receive and incorporate into their own respective offices.

Presenters help the collegiate recreation profession grow by imparting knowledge and making ideas available to attendees to adapt them to serve their own programs and students. Even when a presentation is not 100% applicable to your specific area, you can often glean tidbits to try and infuse insights into your own ideas. It is one of the best ways to help fortify what we bring to campus recreation and our purpose at our institutions. However, for everyone to benefit from your ideas, you first must submit a proposal to get it slated for the workshop or conference.

Educational sessions are an important piece to our conferences and workshops. They provide attendees with an opportunity to expound on ideas that have been practically applied to programs. They also afford us a place to introduce new theories to practitioners and share resources for others to explore and utilize. Personally, some of the best ideas that I've been exposed to have come through educational sessions; I've watched my staff bring back concepts or processes that were able to be inserted and molded to suit our institution's needs.

Perhaps you've been to conferences or workshops in the past where you found the breadth of session topics lacking. You can convert this into an opportunity for you or your staff to present by filling in those spaces with your presentations, which can lead to opening the doors for others to share their own.

If presenting isn't your forte, perhaps facilitating a discussion is! Consider chairing a roundtable about a specific topic. Roundtables are efficient and effective methods to crowdsource ideas and materials through discussion with other professionals and students. Leading a roundtable can be tricky at times, as there are pitfalls where the discussion can get sidetracked or turn stale quickly. My suggestion for prospective roundtable leaders is to reach out to your peers and see what trends, concerns, or ideas are shared at the top of everyone's list and lead with agreeable boundaries to keep exchanges succinct and impactful. As a facilitator, you can come away with plenty of ammunition for your programs when you lead a well-formatted roundtable.

If any of this has sparked your interest, I suggest looking at the NIRSA calendar for conferences and workshops in your region or across the nation. Some conferences have specific topics that they are looking to address, so sending support staff from those specialty areas can be beneficial. Check NIRSA's regional website for opportunities happening in your area. Of course, there is always the NIRSA 2026 Conference, one of the largest stages in our field to showcase successful ideas and programming. Your presentation may be the very spark someone needs to help evolve their department into something greater for their campus.

The student take: Getting involved pays dividends

With a new school year already upon us, it's time to lock in. Zero in on those grades; find fun ways to get involved on campus; stay active; and keep your eyes peeled on ways to stack your resume with irrefutable evidence that you are the perfect candidate for the job you're pining for post-graduation. As I shared last month, working in collegiate recreation can help with at least three of those four things.

During the fall season, there are some outstanding options to get involved with your campus recreation program: students interested in competitive sports can get involved with the NIRSA Champ Series. Specifically, volunteer applications for four sports close Monday, September 15.Now, you may be wondering what you might possibly get out of volunteering at a tournament. In short, you learn through your experience. The NIRSA Championship Series provides experiential learning through sport for all participants and volunteers. NIRSA staff and member volunteers work together to provide premier championship experiences delivered by qualified experts in a safe and welcoming environment.

For each tournament the Champ Series organizes, there's a team of volunteers who make it happen. Volunteers can serve on the sidelines tracking statistics for games in session, assist in marketing throughout the event, or even serve as a liaison between players and tournament staff with a focus on participant experience. Whatever niche skills you may be looking to expand, there is an opportunity for you as a NIRSA Champ Series volunteer. Information about volunteering, including application links, position descriptions, and venue details can be found on the Play section of the NIRSA website.

That's great Riley, but I'm not super interested in volunteering for a NIRSA Champ Series event. How am I supposed to get involved and grow professionally this semester?

Don't fret! Tournaments aren't the only ways to get involved and experience professional development opportunities. Another way to get involved is through attending regional conferences or state workshops and even volunteering at them. Many regional conferences take place during the fall and volunteering at one is a fantastic way to get involved.

Some of my favorite parts of attending a conference are:

1. Travelling to a new city and learning about the local culture.
2. Visiting a new university and seeing how they operate their campus recreation programs and facilities.
3. Meeting and networking with peers who are also looking to grow professionally.
4. Establishing valuable connections with professionals in the field.
5. Learning new things and exploring new perspectives during educational sessions, keynotes, and roundtable discussions.
6. Getting to know the professional staff and students from my university who are attending the conference. Those extended car rides to a conference are where the lore is born.

Sound like something you'd like to experience or learn more about? Apply for a scholarship:

• Region I applications are due September 15
• Region II applications are due September 15
• 2026 Emerging Recreational Sports Leaders Conference applications are due October 31
• 2026 NIRSA Conference applications will open September 15 and remain open until November 15

Whether this year's event will be your first conference or your tenth, you will learn something (or many things) new.

During my journey into campus recreation and through NIRSA, I have been a huge conference goer. I can truly attest to the fact that attending conferences has benefited me in many ways. Because of my conference involvement as an attendee, volunteer, and presenter, I have:

• Developed a stronger ability to push myself outside of my comfort zone, both personally and professional
• Improved my public speaking skills & managed my social anxiety
• Continued to build my confidence when meeting and connecting with new students or professionals in the field
• Developed a greater understanding of what hiring managers are looking for in this field
• Increased my knowledge of collegiate recreation and what other institutions offer

And those are just to name a few.

If you'd like to learn more about upcoming learning events in your area or have questions, don't hesitate to reach out. I'm happy to help however I can.