The Conference Virtual Package offers a curated, on-demand learning experience featuring foundational sessions from the 2026 NIRSA + IDEA® World Conference & Expo. These sessions will focus on essential areas of campus and community recreation—including outdoor recreation, fitness, and adaptive programs—and will be released a few weeks after the in-person event.

Join this webinar of expert panelists—featuring leaders from across the country in campus recreation and high school officiating—sharing proven strategies, creative ideas, and real-world success stories for building effective officiating talent development pipelines. These pipelines are transforming the landscape of sports officiating—enhancing student leadership and career development, strengthening campus recreation programs, and supporting the continued excellence of high school sports through a steady stream of well-prepared new officials.

Join Lashica Thomas and Pam Watts to learn about NIRSA’s new programs and initiatives. This interactive session will include time for member questions and ideas.

Esports can be a varsity-style sport and a social magnet at the same time. In this webinar we unpack what works on real campuses. Our team has visited dozens of campuses across the country in the last few years and seen sports and esports spaces in all shapes and sizes. We will share what works, what does not, and why, including when to invest in competitive arenas, when a casual drop-in lounge wins, and how to keep both active after hours.

The Association of Pickleball Players (APP), USA Pickleball, and Selkirk are collaborating with NIRSA to grow pickleball at the collegiate level nationwide. Together, the organizations will deliver a robust competition platform – The APP Selkirk Collegiate Series, a NIRSA Championship Series event – as well as national exposure opportunities for programs and players, two grant programs, and educational resources. The APP also offers professional development opportunities for NIRSA members throughout the year across a variety of disciplines: operations, tournament management, officiating, marketing, and more. This session will educate NIRSA members on how the APP and USA Pickleball can help grow pickleball on your campus, whether that be starting a program from scratch or helping your existing program thrive, and provide professional enrichment opportunities for NIRSA members.

Outdoor Programs 101 is an introductory-level, online course intended for campus recreation professionals seeking foundational knowledge of outdoor recreation program management within higher education institutions.

Esports represents one of the fastest growing recreational activities on college campuses. The webinar presents results from recent research focused on the lifestyle and wellbeing of esports participants at the collegiate level, aiming at providing valuable information to help guide better practices for campus recreation administrators.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, university campuses began to close or move into virtual operations to attempt to prevent the spread of the virus around the United States, pausing all co-curricular learning opportunities at the campuses, including club sports for the estimated 2 million students who participate in these programs annually. This study, funded by a NIRSA Research Grant, attempts to determine the impact that the pandemic had on club sports participation and operations, both in the 2020-2021 academic year when campuses were first learning to operate with the virus, and over the full four academic year period from 2019-2020 to 2022-2023. The study collected data from club sports departments at 107 institutions nationwide. Attendees will take away lessons for club sports, collegiate recreation, and student affairs professionals for future events and crises that disrupt normal operations, including severe weather, violence and terrorist acts, and mass illness, including insuring that students feel safe while participating in the immediate aftermath of a disruption, and not being concerned about temporarily suspending operations to respond to the crisis.

Esports 101 is an introductory-level, online course intended for campus recreation professionals looking to gain essential knowledge of esports programming, administration, and operations at colleges and universities.

Sport Clubs 101 is an introductory-level, online course designed for campus recreation professionals looking to gain essential knowledge of club sports governance, risk management, and program operations at colleges and universities.