At the Summit you will have the opportunity to attend three different workshops.
Below are the listed options, you will pre-register for these workshops during the registration process.
MANDATORY WORKSHOPS: 1) Basic or Advanced Moderation + Teaching. As a basic foundation for any BridgeUSA student, moderation will be required for all students as ONE of their three workshops. 2) Marketing. One marketing workshop, General Marketing + Outreach, In-person Marketing, OR Digital Marketing (laptop needed) is required for each chapter — this means only a minimum of one person in your chapter is required to take a marketing workshop; however, any and all members may attend.
ELECTIVE WORKSHOPS: Below are an assortment of other workshops that will be offered at the summit. You can choose any TWO options that you prefer! This can include any of the marketing trainings.
Have questions? Check out the descriptions below!
Basic Moderation
Moderation is one of the paramount skills in creating meaningful and lasting change in your campus community. BridgeUSA dialogues are the primary vehicle through which we change the political culture and they must be purposefully created and guided. As a moderator you will need to create a neutral space for ideas to flow between participants, illuminate areas of agreement and carefully navigate conflicts between participants.
In our beginners training you will explore the theoretical basis of moderating, the traits you should embody as a moderator and the guidelines and rules you will moderate by. Then you will engage in a series of mock dialogues to practice common difficulties and people you will encounter in your discussions.
Advanced Moderation + Teaching
In our advanced training we will briefly cover some of the things you need to know as a moderator such as writing good questions, danger signs, and methods of regaining control. However we will focus heavily on mock dialogues with scenarios that are less common and often more delicate for you as a moderator. This training is specially great for chapter presidents and executive board members as it provides training on how to teach moderation skills to other board members of your chapter.
General Marketing + Outreach
Learn the basics of what marketing is and how to use it to grow awareness on your campus. We’ll cover in-person and digital marketing tactics to help you better reach students on your campus as well as different ways of messaging and pitching your BridgeUSA chapter. This training will be mandatory for each chapter, and is a great foundation for learning basic marketing skills to boost your chapter! Want to learn about digital or in-person marking more in-depth? Check out the option offerings below!
Internal Team Dynamics
The Internal Team Dynamics training is all about transforming your team into a true community of bridge-builders and friends. The training goes over how to keep your chapter sustainable through the years, recruit new members, and the importance of mentorship. As well as the power of goal-setting and how to resolve conflicts within your team. Overall, the training will feature fun, practical skills and tools that will ensure your chapter is not only bridging divides on your campus, but is creating a welcoming environment at the same time.
Leadership Training
As young people leading chapters that are disrupting polarization on campus and challenging the division of the moment, we face a tough leadership challenge! From ensuring that we are positioning our chapters effectively on campus to speaking with conviction about our work, this workshop will focus on how we can effectively lead our chapters. Specifically, we’ll discuss how to build strong relationships, inspire other students on campus to join, and navigate arguments against bridge building. This workshop is for anyone wanting to become a better chapter leader and an advocate for the BridgeUSA mission!
Discussion Planning
Weekly discussion planning is the core of our responsibilities as BridgeUSA leaders, and while they are routine, this planning gets difficult for all of us. How do we keep our current members actively engaged? How do I choose the right topic? What if my school does not have a heavy political science focus? How do I divert from the same topics every semester? We all ask these questions, but good news! This workshop is designed to help you answer these questions, learn how to ask unbiased, thought-provoking questions, and improve your time management skills for planning around midterms, finals, and the other stressful events in our lives. This training is great for those who build each week’s discussion, but is also a workshop meant for everyone!
Becoming a H.S. Chapter Mentor
Are you interested in becoming a mentor for the BridgeUSA HS program? Join the workshop to learn more about the program and how you can help influence the future leaders of BridgeUSA! The workshop will contain practical information about what a mentorship relationship entails as well as tools to help the high school leaders achieve their goals.
Digital Marketing
Dive deeper into digital marketing with this workshop! Digital marketing is one of the two ways that your BridgeUSA chapter can grow its awareness on campus. We’ll focus on how to make the most of social media and other digital content, and review different ideas you can try out on your campus. This workshop will also introduce basic graphic design creation. *Bring your laptops!
Physical Marketing
Step away from social media and out onto your campus! This workshop will explore different methods of marketing your BridgeUSA chapter through tabeling and speaking directly with students and faculty. We will also take a closer look at how to make the most of in-person marketing and ways to capture student interest from the get-go.
