Friday's symposium kicked off with a panel titled "Leading through Crisis: MSU and the Larger Struggle Against Sexual Assault." The panel featured Rebecca Campbell and Carrie Moylan, MSU professors and members of the MSU RVSM Expert Advisory Workgroup; Louise Harder, Nassar survivor and The Army of Survivors' lead strategist; EDJA Foundation founder Tabitha Mpamira-Kaguri, who fights child abuse, sexual assault and domestic violence in Uganda; and Tashmica "Firecracker" Torok, founder of the Firecracker Foundation, a local nonprofit supporting children and teenagers who have survived sexual abuse.

MSU trustee Brianna Scott was slated to appear on the panel, but did not attend. Members of the MSU Board of Trustees are attending MSU men's basketball's Saturday Final Four match against Texas Tech in Minneapolis.

Other panels included "Leading for Equity and Justice," featuring representatives from Black Lives Matter of Lansing, Action of Greater Lansing, Equality Michigan and the Michigan League for Public Policy; and "Leading for a More Inclusive Democracy," featuring among others Bushra Amiwala, a candidate for the Board of Commissions of Cook County, Illinois.

Rachel Cleveland, a social relations and policy sophomore and 2019 Madison Diversity Leadership Program Fellow, said the symposium helped give MSU students tools for future leadership, especially those from marginalized groups. Cleveland and other fellows helped introduce segments of the event.

"Seeing that they can do it so we can do it too, it is very empowering and inspiring," Cleveland said. "All the people here are all diverse leaders in their communities ... It's empowering to hear their stories. They're all of marginalized groups or people of color who are really doing groundbreaking work in the Lansing community or internationally."

Ragine Head, a social relations and policy senior and MDLP Fellow, said she's learning different types of leadership styles and skills. She said she hopes to take all the knowledge on display at the symposium to help better take on transformative justice and social change.

Head said she took a lot of notes on Campbell, who spoke about changing institutional issues at MSU from within. Head said she hopes to learn more about fixing institutional problems, an issue she's passionate about.

"Being a woman of color, navigating a lot of the systems, we're definitely gonna need to be equipped with resources, tools and knowledge that many women who have also been in these fields and catalyzed their communities (have)," Head said. "Hearing their stories and using that to combine with our own aspirations and things that we really wanted accomplished in life, really helps us get a better understanding of the direct paths to take and exactly where we should go in order to best accommodate our communities."