Hundreds of university students from across America’s northeast made their way to Binghamton, N.Y., on Friday for the start of the first-ever leadership conference sponsored by Chabad-Lubavitch centers in the region.

The estimated 500 attendees of the Chabad on Campus Intercollegiate Campus Leadership Conference at Binghamton University represented Chabad Houses on more than a dozen colleges from Vermont to the middle Atlantic, including Cornell University, Syracuse University and the University of Maryland. The Oct. 16-18 conference was scheduled to begin before the onset of Shabbat and focus on a theme stressing unity, empowerment and students’ impassioned efforts to promote Jewish life on campus.

“This is an opportunity for students to meet students from all over this region to share ideas and resources, see the energy that exists within each campus, get inspired and bring that sense of empowerment back to their own campuses,” said Rabbi Levi Slonim, programming director at the Chabad Center for Jewish Student Life, which is hosting the Binghamton gathering. “Some of the students are coming from campuses with very small Jewish communities, and this conference will be a real thrill and opportunity for them to learn how to nurture Jewish life on their own campuses.”

The weekend’s schedule included a dinner and musical performance Saturday night. Tamir Goodman, the Jewish basketball player who recently ended his professional career, was also scheduled to speak on Sunday morning.