"Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you it's got about 18 million cracks in it and the light is shining through like never before."

-Senator Clinton, June 7th, 2008 (near the end of her campaign for president in 2008)

Presentation Poster

Great job, Erin and Kira!

Weekly Activism Log for Service Learning-Week 4

1.Activism:

This week focused on marketing YWLP. Particularly designing a flyer, papering campus, and speaking in classes about a meet & greet to recruit new big sisters. I contacted Maria, the fantastic director of the YWLP program on campus, throughout the week. I was successful (after a fair bit of dismaying outcomes with Microsoft Publisher) to create two versions of a flyer for the meet & greet (the theme is a clothing swap!). A pitfall was that I put the incorrect e-mail address to direct inquiries and so when the day came to paper the campus with flyers, we relied on a different flyer that Maria had made. I had the chance to see the inside of more bathroom stalls than I ever had before, for I posted many of the flyers on the inside door. In the next week my hope is that current big sisters in YWLP will pass the lovely flyers to their interested classmates, thereby spreading the interest.

2. Reflection:

As I continue to see more of the workings of the YWLP, a sense of community does help encourage me to feel passionate about the feminist cause. As I see women working together (they do tend to collaborate), I see the process as very effective. I have stepped inside of the YWLP office many times this week, and each time some project is being worked on. I have witnessed a positive self esteem activity being planned for YWLP, and women encouraging each other about classes. I feel like a community can help a cause and a person to excel. Even if the stereotype is that women always collaborate (or can only do this) to be successful, I feel that the collaborative efforts of teams as a source of leadership should be utilized, although not solely. Maria herself seems like a strong woman leader, in more of a typically communal style. She always kindly listened, encouraged, and inspired me to be creative.

3. Reciprocity: 

Not only do I now have a superb group of powerful individuals that I know, who support a million amazing events/programs (Take Back the Night, Let’s Talk About Sex, Vagina Monologues, YWLP), but I also feel like a strong part of the feminist movement. I was welcomed in as a fellow defender of women, another strong voice who is now filled with much more knowledge about how easy stereotyping happens. I feel that the more people know about women liberation, the more it will spread until we as women will have more equality. I have felt encouraged, inspired, and lead by strong women over the course of this service learning project, and I feel a firmer basis of strength in myself as a woman because of it. In this particular project I got to practice good communication, creative computer skills, a bit of my susceptibility to error (the e-mail incident), and some public speaking practice! Now that I know programs like YWLP and all the other programs that put on events this semester are out there, I am inspired to be involved in them, or at very least keep my feminist candle burning bright to inspire those around me (women and men) and the next generation.

Inclusive Leadership (Engagement Requirement)

Last Tuesday I attended a talk about Inclusive Communication by Barbara Thompson, an assistant director of the Department of Diversity Initiatives on UCF campus. Thompson has been working in education for 20 years and currently teaches many classes at the university. She spoke of how she truly loves people. I loved hearing that.

Thompson handed everyone in attendance a business card when they first entered the room. The back of the card has the information in braille. As the group began to sit down in preparation for her talk, she explained that her business card is valuable as information to more people now. I really liked this notion, for it showed that in at least one discernable way she lives what she preaches.

Thompson started off the session by asking the group “what does it mean to set up an inclusive classroom?” This question led to a discussion which can be accurately summarized as an environment where people can feel comfortable. Thompson notes that when a person talking at the front of the room is acting in a non-inclusive way (I say “acting” to note the mess of verbal and nonverbal cues present) via their word choice, topic, or body language that they can lose an audience. She also mentions that as an educator you should make sure to teach to all learning styles, and warns you to not fall into the trap of teaching solely in the same style as you learn. As an educator it is important to do what you can to make your audience feel respected, valued, and included, as opposed to worthless, meaningless, or dismissed.

An overriding theme of the talk was to have a respect for individual human dignity. To understand that people come from all walks of life, and that using stereotypical phrases (Thompson handed out a whole list of common phrases that had past cultural references, usually all negative, about many groups of people), using defensive body language, and not being culturally competent can hinder the audience’s learning and your own chance to create and teach in an inclusive environment. She stressed the importance of understanding cultural variance in your day-to-day interactions, that something unacceptable in your culture may be respected method of performing an action in another region of the world.

                I really like Barbara Thompson and all of her ideas and handouts about communication-one last thing I want to mention that she said was that teachers were expected to be perfect, infallible, never making mistakes. She began the lecture by talking about how every person she was talking to was an education major, and I held my tongue. It is true, it is easy to point at the person communicating with you and point out mistakes. The truth is that she did a wonderful job with showing the group how many ways you can unknowingly push people you are interacting with away, and I found this talk to be highly applicable and useful in any area of communication.

Weekly Activism Log for Service Learning-Week 3

3.   Activism:

This week provided an opportunity to have an “in hind sight” meeting with my group’s community partner, Professor Meredith Tweed. We were successful in pinpointing ideas to improve any future events. Firstly, spending more time to market the event (tabling, flyerng, etc.),not only would that hopefully garner more support for attendees, therefore spreading the message out to more students, but it would also grant the group more service learning hours. Secondly, having a room more enabled for discussion, being that our room was set up for a lecture, so when the discussion part of the activity came along it was a little awkward to communicate effectively. Now that this project is over, we are looking around for more things to do to help the community. I sent a letter as the representative of my group to the LEAD Scholars who hosted Leadership Week, to thank them and suggest the discussion room idea. I also asked about pictures that we can use to display for our project presentation.

2.   Reflection:

This week taught me a bit more about leadership styles, as we all sat in the room discussing the “Wallet” seminar that occurred I recalled how different women asked and answered discussion questions with a different kind of approach, and how certain women unpacked their backpacks and explained things differently, too. I feel like women seeing other women lead the seminar and discuss these issues further advanced the education of the next generation. As Eagly and Carli note, “women’s increasing education predicts their future workplace advancement,” not only in the classroom but also seeing women outside of the classroom lead (16). Once women leaders become the “norm,” I believe that it will be easier to diversify the workplace to include a fair balance of men and women of all backgrounds.

3.   Reciprocity:

I am treated to the involvement of woman's liberation on campus. Being around so many people motivated to empowering women is a gift of its own. I learn so many things that are occurring in society that can help make the labyrinth more difficult for women to navigate, in this case knowledge is power, and I feel I am more adept at stopping these events from occurring (for things like sexist jokes, answering people’s questions about women advancement who do not know the statistics, or influence on hiring trends in a job where I have a say). In this way I feel I am growing as a cultured individual who can know the sad current truths about woman’s difficulty in advancing, and help to create new truths in any way I can.