WILL SEBERGER/Arizona Daily Wildcat Author and social activist Naomi Wolf speaks to a group of students at the Arizona leadership conference on Saturday in the Student Union Memorial Center.

While some college students spent their Friday night finding ways to keep their minds off of school, more than 700 students packed the Levine Ballroom in the Student Union Memorial Center to kick off the 10th annual Arizona Collegiate Leadership Conference.

Students from 21 institutions, including all three state universities, made this year's conference the largest to date.

Student organizers Samantha Zipp and Kimmey Hardisty said they began planning the conference in the wake of Sept. 11.

"From that crisis really phenomenal people came about, and we wanted to capture that in the conference," Hardisty said.

The two-day conference featured key-note speaker Naomi Wolfe, a New York Times best selling author of "The Beauty Myth" and Al Gore's former fashion consultant, who called upon students to focus on being the ethical leaders of the future.

"Look around: The 700 of you form a network tonight and this is the way you can become an incredible force," Wolfe said.

"So many of you look around at the role models held up by culture, and so many of you don't like what you see," Wolfe said. "You can take the skills you learn here this weekend and change and even save the world."

Conference organizers and UA officials said that it is more important than ever for young people to learn to lead.

"This is the kind of thing that puts our students on a trajectory to success later in life," said Conference Advisor Heather Gasser.

The conference, which was sponsored by the Center for Student Involvement and Leadership, offered more than 40 leadership-building courses divided into four different tracks: multiculturalism and diversity, student involvement and leadership involvement, business and entrepreneurship and greek leadership.

About one-quarter of the students who attended the conference were fraternity or sorority members who came, in part, to combat hazing, said Mariel Eurst, a representative of the Pan-Hellenic Association and psychology junior.

"The excuse everyone uses is that hazing promotes tradition. We are just looking at teaching people other ways to promote tradition and become leaders," Eurst said.

Many students came to the conference to learn leadership skills to apply to their everyday lives.

Patrick Mooney, a science education senior, came hoping to learn lessons that would help him in his life in a residence hall.

"They were encouraging us to come check this out so we could bring leadership skills back to the hall," Mooney said. "There are so many leadership programs at this school, so for a young person it's just a great opportunity to get involved."

Almost all of the conference events were planned by students, and many tried to use creative methods to teach others about leadership issues.

Students from Pima Community College put together a mock Jeopardy! game that focused on promoting diversity.

"We had a bunch of questions that focused on building awareness, but we wanted to do it in a fun way," said Dana Heredia, a student government representative from Pima's Desert Vista Campus.

UA officials called the event a success and applauded the large student turnout.

"I think this is absolutely great and an incredible tribute to student leadership," said Dean of Students Melissa Vito.