Stoughton College Student Attends Henry Clay Leadership Conference

Stoughton resident Meagan Greene recently returned from the Henry Clay Conference in Lexington, Kentucky. Held June 16-23 this year, the conference is attended by just one rising collegiate senior from each state in the country.

Greene, a 2009 , will be a senior at Suffolk University in the fall, majoring in political science. 

The Senior U.S. Senator from each state selects the student to attend the Henry Clay Center for Statesmanship Student Congress. 

"The Henry Clay Center Student Congress educates a new generation of leaders in the principles and practices of statesmanship as exemplified by the great Kentucky statesman, Henry Clay," according to the program's website. The five-day curriculum exposes students "from every U.S. State to a curriculum in diplomacy, dialogue, listening skills, negotiation and mediation."

Greene came in first with her group in an oral argument presentation and along with the other students who participated got certificates naming them "Kentucky Colonels." This entitles the students to free entrance to the Kentucky Derby and to sit in a special section for the "Kentucky Colonels."

“This experience has given me the ability to see the variety of opinions, and knowledge within my generation, and future leaders," Greene wrote in an email. 

"While, in Congress there has been a polarization among parties, I have hope for the future leaders ability to compromise, and be concerned with policy more than power," she continued. 

"At the Henry Clay Center for Statesmanship Student Congress, I met fifty other students from around the country that forced me not only recognize my strengths as a person, and leader, but also encouraged me to want to recognize the severity in our country of issues such as the national debt, education, and sustainability.”