***WEATHER UPDATE***

Global Girl is still on however we will start 30 minutes late to allow extra time for travel in the morning. Check in will now be from 8:30-9:00 with the conference starting at 9:00am.

Thank You and Drive Safe!

 

How do we, our families, our schools and our communities thrive in today’s culture? Pulled by pace, technology, materialism, and information, how do we find meaning and happiness when faced with so many conflicting options? As parents, educators, and community leaders, we are constantly discerning what is important, what is relevant, and what is actually going on. How do we navigate when the map is radically changing?

Global Girl: Thriving in the Age of Contradiction will examine these questions as they relate to education, leadership, mindfulness, and pace. How do we create an environment for the global girl to thrive? How do we facilitate growth and development, ensuring that her identity and worth are not coupled with cultural contradiction but made stronger by conscious choices?  Each of our speakers will address these topics from a unique perspective.Global Girl is a community discussion with national importance. It will identify the essence of key contradictions facing today’s students and families, and help parents, educators, and community leaders find the tools and language to navigate today's world.

Leadership and Vision
How does female leadership uniquely contribute to communities, organizations, and families? How has our idea of expanded leadership evolved with the advent of more female leaders? And how can we lead in a manner which inspires girls to develop their own vision and establish their own voice in this world?  Surrounded by images and celebrity stories that lack meaning and authenticity, what girls need instead are role models with passion and vision. How do we become those role models? Sally Helgesen will examine the unique qualities that women bring to leadership on all levels. She will discuss how vision and insight strengthen women to lead with confidence and conviction. 

About Sally Helgesen

Sally Helgesen has been a pioneer in the area of women and leadership for decades. She is an internationally acclaimed author, speaker, and consultant who is recognized as one of the world’s most influential leadership experts. Helgesen is the author of six books, most recently The Female Vision: Women’s Real Power at Work.  Her best-selling The Female Advantage: Women’s Ways of Leadership is hailed as “the classic work” on women’s leadership styles. She develops and delivers leadership programs globally with clients including Microsoft, IBM, The World Bank Group, Morgan Stanley, and The Global Forum on Women. She lives in Chatham, New York.

Pace and Connection
Moving a mile a minute, students and adults alike are overworked, over-programmed, and spread thin in the name of multitasking. Can we keep up the pace?  Is speed the best choice for us? What does slowing down mean to an adolescent who is continually bombarded by social media, schoolwork, testing, practices, entertainment, and peer influences? And how can we, as adults, mirror good choices while struggling with the same relentless demands of work and home?  Join Carl Honoré as he addresses the issues we face as we attempt to weigh the cost of our high speed society. He’ll discuss insights that challenge our assumptions, and he’ll offer strategies to help us slow down in our daily lives.

About Carl Honoré

Carl Honoré is an award-winning journalist, author, and TED speaker. Honoré’s pivotal work In Praise of Slowness brought to light a new way of looking at the world and served as a catalyst in the creation of the Slow Movement.  In his latest book, The Slow Fix, Honoré explores how to solve problems in every walk of life, from business and politics to health and relationships, without falling for short-term, superficial quick fixes. He currently lives in London with his wife and children.

 

Mindfulness and Meaning
Stress and distraction have become a common part of our daily lives. Paying attention is increasingly difficult due to the demands of our current culture. It has become more challenging to live intentionally and to make conscious choices in light of all that is going on. Focusing on the present, or mindfulness as it is called, is a timely issue in today’s culture of distraction. How does this simple practice work? Recent neuroscience tells us that the practice of mindfulness can cause structural and functional changes in the brain. Join Dr. Catherine Kerr as she presents recent work from her laboratory and that of other scientists on mindfulness and the brain. She will explore how simple mindfulness training can serve as “exercise” for our brains and can make us more focused and happier.

About Catherine Kerr

Dr. Catherine Kerr studies mindfulness and the brain-body connection at her mind-in-body lab at Brown University. She is the Director of Translational Neuroscience for the Contemplative Studies Initiative at Brown, Principal Investigator and Assistant Professor in Family Medicine at Brown University Medical School. Her research focuses on how mindfulness and other practices can help retrain subtle brain and brain-body networks that underlie attention, movement, sensation and memory.  She is the author of over 35 peer-reviewed publications in journals such as Lancet and Journal of Neuroscience and is a Senior Fellow at the Mind and Life Institute and has spoken to audiences at Harvard Medical School, National University of Singapore, University of California at San Francisco, the University of Virginia and many other groups.

 

Education and Technology
What does education look like right now? Is it meeting the needs of the future? How must it change in the face of an ever complex world of instant information, constant discovery, and personal access? Technology is changing the speed and quantity at which information can be accessed. Is the educational community keeping up with the times? How do we foster intellectual curiosity and self-motivated learning using ever-evolving tools? Will Richardson has been exploring these concepts for the past decade and will speak to the current state of education in the light of ever-changing technology. 

About Will Richardson

Will Richardson has spent the last dozen years developing an international reputation as a leading thinker and writer about the intersection of social online learning networks and education. Richardson is a co-founder of Powerful Learning Practice and Modern Learner Media. He is a national advisory board member of the George Lucas Education Foundation and a regular columnist for District Administration Magazine. His latest book is Why School? How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and children.

Thank You to Our Sponsors!

 

Mr. & Mrs. Joseph T. Knox

Dan Gecker & Elizabeth Gibbs

 

 

Allen, Allen, Allen & Allen 
Communication Partners LLC 
Zinsser Plastic Surgery   
Jan & Jim Starnes 

Ashtanga Yoga Richmond
Fraiche on the Avenues
Regal Home Improvement
Robert J Brager, M.D., Virginia Ear, Nose, Throat Associations
Tinsley Media
The Felmus Family
Andrew & Kate Park
Mark Pennington & Marsha Feldstein