Students from surrounding community colleges attended the 8th Annual Latino Leadership Conference where the theme “Empowering Our Voices Through Unification” was presented.

The conference began on Friday with opening remarks from the Voz de la Alianza Latina Estudiantil, or VALE committee.

“We’re here to promote leadership skills in different areas of study,” said Ricardo Serrano, the workshop coordinator for the conference.

Participants attended different workshops Friday and Saturday that stressed leadership in the Latino community.

“The whole conference is nice because we’ve met different students from different schools,” said Elizabeth Gomez de la Casa from Harper College.

On Friday night, the conference sponsored Noche Cultural in the Holmes Student Center’s Duke Ellington Ballroom. The dance was hosted by Ms. Latina NIU, Hagar Allen and Mr. Papi Chulo NIU Jose Iniguez.

On Saturday, participants had the choice of attending two different workshops.

Instructor Susan Timm from the department of Communication presented “Will the Real Leaders Stand Up!”

In a team building activity, students had to try and build the tallest balloon tower only using the balloons and tape. The point of the exercise was to work together toward a common goal.

The students laughed as they tried to get the balloons to stand in a tower.

“They had to work together even though they were from different schools,” Timm said. “They had to see how they were going to go about it.”

The Latino comedy ensemble Salsation entertained the crowd during their Saturday afternoon performance.