LI’s Youth Leadership School Last Weekend—“Encouraging, enlightening, and excellent”

Each summer hundreds of competing weekend events and excursions fill the time of DC students and interns.  Instead of hitting the beach, an amusement park, or one of the many local DC attractions, 129 conservative students spent two full days and nights learning how to become more effective conservative activists at the Leadership Institute's Youth Leadership School.

Leah Courtney of the University of West Florida said, “You learn more in two days than in the four years it takes to get a political science degree.”

Students representing 74 colleges, 30 states, 20 Capitol Hill offices, 19 conservative organizations, and four countries heard from excellent speakers, networked with their classmates, earned a pile of conservative books and literature, and most importantly, left with the tools needed to advance their values.




The Youth Leadership School is a two-day, intensive training designed to teach young conservatives how to effectively organize young people for conservative candidates and causes.

Students gained a wealth of information that prepared them for leadership, building an organization, handling media and public relations, holding mock elections, and staging a candidate’s campus visit.

San Jose State University student Nithin Mathew founded a conservative group on his campus and said, “If you are serious about being effective on campaigns or college groups, LI is the boot camp to attend.”

In addition to hearing from experts, students engaged in various exercises to implement some of the newly learned techniques. One exercise placed students in a hypothetical crises situation and encouraged them to work with each other on composing a political strategy in a brief amount of time.

“I plan on implementing the strategies I learned at LI the next time I work on a campaign,” explained Alicia Powe, a former student at John Jay College and founder of a conservative college club.  “I would describe [the training] as a political boot camp worth every moment.  It helps you build skills that you can take with you no matter what profession you are in.”


James Sturch, a student at University of Arkansas -  Little Rock, described the training as, "The best training I've ever had- encouraging, enlightening, and excellent."

LI hosts more than 30 Youth Leadership Schools throughout the country each year. If you would like to organize a Youth Leadership School on your campus, please contact LI’s Youth Leadership School Director  Kent Strang