Student-athletes Meagan Chenault ’07 (Amherst, VA/Amherst) and Emily Fitzpatrick ’07 (Virginia Beach, VA/Norfolk Academy), along with assistant sports information director Cameron Adams, will represent Sweet Briar this weekend at the NCAA Division III Student-Athlete Regional Leadership Conference in Dallas.

According to the conference’s web site, the three-day workshop is “designed to encourage student-athletes to become confident change agents on their campuses and in their communities and to provide a forum for student-athletes, coaches, administrators and faculty to build partnerships, develop leadership skills, and discuss Division III issues that impact student-athletes.”

A main focus of the conference is to help student leaders bring about positive changes on their campuses. As part of registration, each institutional team was required to identify an issue impacting their school. Chenault and Fitzpatrick have chosen to focus on improving team unity and campus support for athletics.

Working as a team, and employing information presented at the workshop, Chenault, Fitzpatrick and Adams will work to develop an action plan, which they will implement upon returning to Sweet Briar. The NCAA will then follow-up with an assessment to monitor the team’s success.

The Division III Student-Athlete Regional Leadership Conference is fully funded by the NCAA. Each participating institution must select two student-athletes and one full-or part-time representative of the athletics department to attend. At least one student-athlete must be a member of the school’s Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) and each team member must represent a different sport.

The athletics department chose Chenault and Fitzpatrick to attend because both have shown strong leadership qualities as members of the softball and lacrosse teams, respectively. Both are members of Sweet Briar's SAAC.