Johnson & Wales University SEEM Leadership Conference Celebrates 10th Anniversary
Each year, JWU’s Sports, Entertainment, Event — Management (SEEM) program hosts the highly anticipated SEEM Leadership Conference. This year marked the 10th anniversary of the conference, which features a keynote, professional panels and networking opportunities. SEEM alumni return to campus as panelists to share their success in the entertainment industry and reflect on their time as students.
But most importantly, this event is planned and executed by SEEM students as part of a Directed Experimental Education (DEE) course. This year, the course was overseen by Associate Professor Elizabeth Panciera.
“The students do a tremendous amount of research and relationship management to find panelists who can speak to what attendees want to hear about,” shared Professor Panciera. “Through this whole experience, they learn every little intricate detail about planning, producing, creative style and where the industry trends are right now.”
Thirteen SEEM students participated in planning the event and were split into three committees: Education, Marketing & Sponsorship and Operations. Each committee had a set of specific tasks to help prepare, plan and execute the conference.
Leading the committees were program managers Katie Sloan ’24 and Meaghan Decouta ’24, who oversaw the planning and execution of the conference. “As program managers, we led internal meetings with our team and met with external stakeholders involved with the conference,” shared Meaghan. She and Katie supported the committees throughout the entire semester to meet deadlines and help with the planning.
“One of the standout highlights of this experience was the ability to foster cross-department collaboration at JWU,” said Katie. “During the execution of this event, we worked with Graphic Design students, the College of Food Innovation & Technology, Alumni Relations, the College of Hospitality Management, the Center for Media Production, Catering, Student Engagement and more.”
“This was the first time that I have ever stepped into a role like this,” said Kyle Marcinko ’25, who served on the Marketing & Sponsorship committee. Kyle worked to secure sponsors for the event and provide them with any information they needed. “One obstacle that I learned from was interacting with real life industry members who have their own deadlines and things to do,” Kyle continued. “This made it difficult to get responses within certain deadlines that we needed to meet. But overall, I learned how to be comfortable talking to sponsors and industry professionals and how to be flexible, which has gained me very valuable skills and knowledge that I will definitely use in industry.”