Cynthia Forrest serves as essay judge and presenter at ACE and NASPA

Cynthia Forrest, Ed.D., vice president for Student Affairs, has been involved in significant professional engagements over the past two months.

On February 7th, Forrest served on the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum's panel of judges for the national Profile in Courage Essay Contest, held at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, Massachusetts.

The contest invited high school students throughout the nation to “consider the concept of political courage by writing an essay on a U.S. elected official who has chosen to do what is right, rather than what is expedient.” A “Profile in Courage” is the retelling of a story of how an elected official risked his or her career to do what he or she felt was honorable rather than be swayed by public opinion or political pressure. The essay contest challenges students to research and write about of political courage that occurred after the 1956 publication Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy.

Forrest also attended the council board meeting for the American Council on Education (ACE) Women's Network Executive Council, on which she serves. The board meeting was held March 1-3 in Washington, D.C, at the ACE Annual Meeting as well as the ACE Women's Network State Coordinators' Conference, where she presented a session titled "Strategic Communication for the Network.”

In addition, Forrest was selected as a presenter at the March 20th National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) National Conference.  The program that she and her co-presenters created, “Internationalization of US Campuses: Blending Cultures" was featured as the NASPA International Program Knowledge Community sponsored program.