On Dec. 14, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the State Department will hold a “Women and Public Service” conference in Washington, D.C. for student representatives from the Seven Sister schools.
The conference “will seek to promote the next generation of women leaders who will invest in their countries and communities, provide leadership for their governments and societies, and help change the way global solutions are developed,” stated Clinton during the Women in the World Stories and Solutions Summit last March.
While the twenty-five student representatives attending do not have to travel down until next week, they have been preparing for “the opportunity to be inspired by and network with other Seven Sister students and women,” according to Janet Lansberry, assistant director of the Weismann Center.
Lansberry, who is attending the conference as well, scheduled a mandatory meeting on Nov. 14 to help the students review the finer points of business etiquette and networking. “It is important that everyone is one the same page,” said Lansberry. “We wanted them to start to grasp their distinct role in moving forward women’s leadership.”
The November meeting trained the student representatives to be alert, to take good notes, and how to network. Lansberry said that the meeting was “to cover things like having a firm handshake, smiling when you enter a room, and making a good impression.”
Lansberry also said that she wanted to make sure that the student representatives have a chance to shine at the conference, and begin to gain confidence in themselves to one day potentially run for a political office. “Some students in that room might end up running for office. Some might be governors, one might even be the president.”
While Lansberry is preparing the student representatives for the social and business aspects of the conference, the student representatives have been preparing intellectually for the conference. “I need to know about international current events,” said Jenna Lempesis ’12, one of Mount Holyoke’s student representatives. “I really want to be well-informed about the speakers.” Lempesis is a senior graduating with a politics major and anthropology minor. She first found out about the conference when she “originally got an e-mail from the State Department and then administration.”
The schedule for the event hasn’t been finalized yet, according to Politics professor Vincent Ferraro, who is helping to develop the next phase of the conference’s program. There will be many activities and workshops for the student representatives to participate in. According to him the conference will consist of “a lot of panel discussions. A lot of mentoring as well.”
Alumnae from Mount Holyoke and the other Seven Sisters will attend the conference to give advice to the next generation of women leaders. “There are a very limited number of women in decision-making roles. We want to make it more possible for women to be in those leadership positions,” Ferraro said. According to him, the panels, mentors and networking sessions at the conference hope to show the student representatives “what’s needed to succeed and how to get there.”
Ferraro also revealed that after the December conference, the State Department and the Seven Sisters are planning on holding a Summer Institute for Women’s Leadership at Wellesley College. The Institute will select sixty non-American women from across the globe to be trained in leadership skills, like organization, public speaking, networking and policy writing for four weeks. “There will be two more summer institutes, but we don’t know where. One of the summer institutes will be at Mount Holyoke but we don’t know if it will be 2013 or 2014,” said Ferraro.
For those American students ineligible for the institute or international students who want to return home over the summer break, the Weissman Center is holding a series of leadership workshops called “Cultivating the Leader Within: Women’s Power and Purpose” with other sister schools during the spring semester. Lansberry stated that, “On Feb. 10, the kick-off begins at Smith College with a networking brunch. The other Seven Sisters are invited and the brunch is open to any student.”
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