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Welcome to the Wilmington University Leader Camp Page The Proposal: Thanks again for meeting with us on Friday to discuss the potential of holding an “unconference” for Wilmington Graduate School of Education (GSE) students, alumni, and faculty. Todd, Bill, and I are very excited at the potential this event holds for Wilmington University.

To give you a bit of background on the unconference structure, it is a conference where all attendees are equal and have an equal opportunity to share and network with one another. It embraces the true sense of community and empowers and inspires those in attendance. It is a place for Wilmington GSE students, alumni, and faculty to share their passions, current work, and engage in meaningful, professional discourse outside of the traditional graduate classroom.

The unconference does not have a set schedule of speakers prior to the morning of the event. Attendees arrive and then spend the first hour mingling and determining the schedule by adding topics of interest to the schedule board (figure 1). The **//attendees//** become the **//speakers//**.

//Figure 1: Schedule Board -- Taken by A. Forgrave, EdcampTO//

Following this, attendees choose which sessions they would like to attend and are encouraged to “float” between rooms to find the session that aligns best with their personal interests.

While this may seem outlandish and extremely risky, the structure works exceptionally well. Once the first courageous speaker adds a session to the board, the rest begin to pile in and the day runs itself.

As an original organizer and co-founder of the Edcamp unconference, I have seen the incredible impact this style of professional development has had upon the education community. So much so, that I have decided to utilize Edcamp as the focus of my dissertation studies.

Edcamp began in Philadelphia in 2010 and has since grown to be an international phenomenon, resulting in 65 Edcamp unconferences planned, internationally, to date (figure 2).

Figure 2: Edcamps Across the Globe

These events have garnered the attention of [|Edutopia], [|The Washington Post], [|TEDx] (resulting in an Edcamp TEDx talk), [|The Philadelphia Inquirer], [|November Learning], and many other media (please click any of the above links to be brought to the coverage).

For more information on the unconference structure, please feel free to contact us or to visit [|www.edcampfoundation.org].

Thanks for your time and consideration!