In promoting their ever-growing community of self-love and personal confidence, LMU Panhellenic Council hosted an event on Sunday, Feb. 10, featuring keynote speaker Stacy Nadeau. In its second year hosting a panel for its women, Panhellenic is working to continue branding it “Real Talk.” This year’s panel focused on the importance of mental health.
“We want to have real, empowering conversations,” said Program Coordinator of Sorority and Fraternity Life, Larry Daves. “…what we wanted to get out of this, and what we realized with Stacy, is she talks about self-love and confidence.”
Stacy Nadeau is a consultant, coach, and now speaker, who was involved in the 2005 Dove Body Campaign. The billboard featured six women modeling in their underwear, untouched, to promote real women and body positivity. This campaign sparked huge conversation across the nation.
Nadeau went from being an undergraduate student at DePaul University to a billboard model appearing on the Today Show, CNN, the Ellen Show, Oprah, and more.
“She’s incredible, she’s chill, she’s bubbly, she’s everything,” said Panhellenic President Lauren Anderson. “She’s easy talk to and shared that she’s just an average person who got approached by someone and is now in a huge campaign.”
Daves had seen clips of Nadeau prior to her appearance at LMU. As program coordinator, he attends national conferences regarding Greek life, and Nadeau, a Tri Delta, is relatively well-known throughout the community as an advocate for self-confidence. Daves knew well before her appearance that she would make a strong keynote speaker for LMU’s sorority women.
“There are different powers I have as a male, to leverage different things for my female counterparts to exceed their potential,” Daves said. “…I will never be able to get a message across, and I felt Stacy would be able to talk to women in a relatable way.”
Panhellenic Council claims to have always represented a community of self-love and confidence. As a fairly new council, the team plans to take on every opportunity to host more empowering events, like the one with Nadeau, to continue spreading the message.
“This year, we focused a lot on diversity and inclusion,” Anderson said. “…and Panhellenic is a newer council, so a big focus was that new members knew what we were.”
According to Daves, this event marked a strong way to equip the new members of the Panhellenic community with relatable tools to deal with self-image. Stacy identifies these tools as “Befriending Your Inner Critic” and “Anchoring Your Thoughts”.
“My challenge that I want the girls to take away from these conversations is having this program for women to feel empowered to say, ‘It is okay that I am in love with myself and confident with who I am,’” Daves said. “If we could get a thousand of our women out on the Bluff being confident in themselves, I can’t imagine what that would look like to others in the community.”