What is Elevating Cougs?
Elevating Cougs is a two-day, virtual conference for employees of Washington State University. Founded in 2023, Elevating Cougs became the university’s largest-ever in-house employee professional development event in it’s first year. In 2024, Elevating Cougs continued to grow and welcomed over 800 employee attendees.
Elevating Cougs offers three unique learning tracks focused on both soft and technical skills: Developing as a Coug, Leading as a Coug, and Workday Success Stories. Learn more about these tracks here. Every conference offers a new lineup of sessions designed to help Cougs develop their professional skills. Explore previous events’ sessions here.
Here’s what sets Elevating Cougs apart:
Elevating Cougs is a professional development event created to serve the unique needs and journeys of WSU employees. With this in mind, emphasis is placed on offering sessions created and led by Cougs.
Elevating Cougs brings together subject matter experts from across the university to present on professional and leadership development, and technical and Workday skills.
While some sessions may feature speakers from outside the university, Elevating Cougs is almost entirely organized and brought to you by your peers: fellow Cougs.
By remaining 100% virtual, as well as free to attend for WSU employees, Elevating Cougs is accessible for all, regardless of their location or role at the university.
If an employee is unable to attend the live event, all Elevating Cougs sessions are made available on-demand shortly following the conference in WSU’s online learning platform, Percipio.
By offering a full lineup of sessions relevant to a diverse range of WSU employees, Elevating Cougs strives to offer learning that attendees can put into action immediately.
The conference offers learning opportunities for employees of all levels of experience and interest. Across all three tracks, sessions range in skill level, subject matter, and length from 30-minue micro sessions to 90-minute workshops.
With the variety of session lengths and topics, attendees can create a personalized conference experience tailored to their individual professional development needs, attending as many as their schedule permits.
Our Vision
Through peer-driven virtual learning, the Elevating Cougs conference provides relevant, accessible, and actionable training and professional development to all WSU employees, regardless of their experience level, role, or location within the WSU system.
