The NCAA Leadership Conference is celebrating its 10th anniversary in Orlando from May 28 to June 1, and for the first time, professional development will become an integral part of the curriculum.

After conducting a focus group with past participants in November, conference organizers determined that intercollegiate athletics’ future leaders were looking for more professional guidance during their time in Orlando.

“We’ll have them look at their talents and where they want to be in the future,” said Curtis Hollomon, NCAA associate director of education services. “The programming will provide the student-athletes with the opportunity to learn more about themselves, and in turn, help them get where they want to go after graduation.”

The conference’s 352 participants, up from last year’s 324, will hear from a number of professionals who have run the gamut of experiences in intercollegiate athletics and higher education.

The professional development will begin with presentations from six past participants who will discuss what they learned as student-athletes and how those experiences helped shape their futures and careers.

Participants also will learn about ethics and responsibility during an executive hour featuring 13 high-profile administrators involved with intercollegiate athletics. Panelists will include Bernard Franklin, NCAA senior vice president for governance and membership; Warde Manuel, director of athletics at the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York; Dee Todd, director of athletics at North Carolina A&T State University; and Charlotte Westerhaus, NCAA vice president for diversity and inclusion.

Hollomon said surveys from past participants reinforced the need for the conference to concentrate on professional development.

“We have student-athletes out there in the professional world who told us they’re using skills they learned at this conference,” Hollomon said. “They’re leaving their campuses and affecting people in their jobs. In a sense, it’s helping to change the world. It’s amazing how it affects not just one person, but entire campuses, conferences and communities.”

The conference has always prided itself on diversity, and this year is no exception. The group will include 72 white males, 72 white females, 71 ethnic-minority males, 80 ethnic-minority females and 38 international student-athletes.

The NCAA also will continue its relationship with the America-Israel Friendship League, with four Israeli student-athletes participating in Orlando.

Additionally, all but three NCAA-sponsored sports will be represented among the participants.

“Our selection committee makes the conference as diverse as it can, making sure participants mirror the diversity of society,” Hollomon said.

Student-athletes will be split into 13 “color teams,” each of which will represent about nine NCAA sports and will reflect the conference’s ethnic diversity.

While there are differences among the more than 1,000 member institutions and 380,000 NCAA student-athletes, Hollomon hopes that by the end of the conference, participants will notice the similarities, which are more significant.

“A common misconception within the NCAA membership is that the three divisions are completely different, but there are more similarities than most people think,” Hollomon said. “Our student-athletes need to realize that. There are a lot of things that make our institutions different from one another, but there are more reasons why they’re the same.”

While some of the curriculum has changed over time, the fundamental purpose of the leadership conference has remained the same: to prepare student-athletes for greater leadership roles on their campuses and in their communities.

“We try to do anything and everything we can to improve them as leaders and to help them learn in the method that is most helpful to them,” Hollomon said.