To celebrate Women’s History month, WWN is highlighting Yale organizations that address women’s issues in the workplace and beyond, whether they are students, staff, or faculty members.
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The Yale Women’s Leadership Initiative
The Yale Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI) was founded in 2006 by five undergraduate students who wanted to create an official organization recognized by the University to address issues revolving around women’s leadership among the various student activities Yale, as well as provide mentoring and support for female student leaders on campus. WLI offers a wide variety of programs: a bi-annual Job Shadowing Days, the Leading Ladies Gala, a mentorship network that includes four Yale professional schools, career-building workshops, and an annual Yale Women in Leadership Conference. This year’s conference keynote speakers were Ann Shoket, Editor in Chief, Millennial Expert, and Claudia Chan, CEO & founder of S.H.E. GLOBL Media Inc. Every year, over 600 students engage in WLI programs. For more information on WLI, go to: http://www.yalewli.com/
WLI WeWomen 7th Annual Yale Women in Leadership conference keynote speaker Ann Shoket (middle)
WLI WeWomen 7th Annual Yale Women in Leadership conference - Leading Women in STEM, Drs. A. Abella, Melissa Franklin, and Y. Will (left to right)
WLI WeWomen 7th Annual Yale Women in Leadership conference - Boss but not Bossy session with Chloe Drew, Director of the Mayor’s Office of Appointments, City of New York, Emilie Aries, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Bossed Up, and Lex Schroeder, Editor at the Lean Enterprise Institute and Blogger for Take the Lead Women.
WLI Claudia Chan
Yale Women Faculty Forum
The Yale Women Faculty Forum (WFF) was established in 2001 to highlight the presence of women at the University and the accomplishments of Yale alumnae. The purpose of WFF is to “foster gender equity throughout the University through policy initiatives and research; promote scholarship by women and on women and gender across all schools of the University; and promote mentoring, collaboration, and networking.” WFF holds numerous events and programs throughout the academic year, including interdisciplinary lectures, conferences on gender, WFF-Women in Science at Yale mentoring lunches, leadership training workshops (last year’s theme was Preparing for Life’s Pivotal Moments: A Leadership Workshop with Shana Ross), walking tours of women’s history at Yale, and an annual fall reception. Last year, for the first time, WFF offered free childcare during the reception and intends on continuing this in-demand service next year as a way to model a supportive way of hosting work events at Yale. WWF also offers the Public Voice Fellowship, which give an opportunity to 20 women and under-represented minority scholars to work with top journalists from The OpEd Project. Public Voices is supported by the Office of the Provost and is part of WFF’s ongoing public thought leadership, mentorship, and professional development efforts. Every 5 years WFF publishes The View, a report on the demographic data of men and women faculty at Yale. If you would wish to obtain more information, please check their website at http://wff.yale.edu/
2014 WFF fall reception at the Beinecke
Women in IT@Yale
WIT@Yale is a shared interest group whose goal is to encourage, recruit, retain, and advance women in Information Technology roles by providing community support, education, and mentoring. Its mission is to recruit, build, empower and sustain a community of women in information technology. Although it is targeted for women, all members of the Yale community are welcome to participate. Shauna King, Vice President for Finance and Business Operations, is WIT@Yale’s Executive Sponsor. WIT@Yale holds Profiling Careers in IT meetings with topics such as ‘How supported do women feel in IT at Yale?.’ Every year since its creation in 2013, the group publishes a survey reporting on how women in IT feel supported by the University in their technology roles. Through their website they also make available useful information such as the interviews with and career paths of current Yale IT women leaders like Lisa Sawin, Associate Director of User Experience and Web Services; http://its.yale.edu/about/careers-it-program/women-it-yale/diversity-it-women/women-it-lisa-sawin. WIT@Yale is also active in creating interest in IT for women who are a few years away from entering the workforce. To fulfill this mission, last year WIT@Yale organized a hackathon for 15 women high schoolers from Connecticut. The event was co-sponsored by Microsoft. The winners of the challenge were the students who developed the “Speak You Heart” app. The app was created to provide students, peers, parents and educators with a way to quickly help those being bullied. The application compiles resources that students can access with a touch of their screen. Check this group out at http://its.yale.edu/wit
WIT@Yale hackathon 2014 group
WIT@Yale hackathon 2014 winners
Yale University Women’s Organization
The Yale University Women’s Organization (YUWO) was founded in 1965 to create a group specifically for faculty, staff and spouses. The Organization established the following as their bylaws: “The purpose of the organization is to provide women in the Yale community with opportunities to pursue intellectual and social interests; to develop friendships; and support the scholarship program.” Through provision of services, YUWO has created a community for Yale women to come together to learn, socialize and provide service. YUWO offers members a multitude of activity groups to partake in such as: book clubs, bridge group, conversational French, golf & tennis, writing group, walking group and more! YUWO also offers Lunch and Learn series for members that include a wide variety of speakers. YUWO’s Spring Lecture Series will focus on the theme of privacy: “Is There Any Such Thing as Privacy Anymore?” YUWO has a commitment to women’s education and offers an on-campus Study group to members, as well as fundraising opportunities to support their scholarship programs for women at Yale. Last year, six Yale women were able to pursue their higher education goals and received a total of $16,000 in scholarships. Since its inception in 1972, the YUWO scholarship program has awarded 323 scholarships totaling $349,675 including this year’s awards. Annual dues are only $25.00 a year! Join Today! To join YUWO, a brochure and membership application can be found at: http://www.yale.edu/yuwo/memberinfo.html
YUWO celebrated its 2014 scholarship winners at an Awards luncheon May 8. Seated left to right recipients Melissa Morgan, Katrina Sikorski, and Naomi Hall with scholarship committee member Judy Moore. Standing (l. to r.) Blanche Agnostinelli, Carol Sirot, Lyn Belt, Trudie Bollier, Berclee Cameron, and Sally Monaghan.
WISAY
Women in Science At Yale (WISAY) is dedicated to promoting the interests of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), supporting women scientists, and advocating for gender equality in all fields. Historically, only a small fraction of science degrees were awarded to women, but in recent decades women’s overall participation in STEM fields has steadily increased. Today, women earn half of all bachelor’s degrees in science. Women’s involvement in advanced study and careers in STEM fields continues to grow, however women are still underrepresented in many STEM fields and face significant challenges at the highest levels of these professions. WISAY seeks to help overcome these disparities by supporting women at all career levels through our four main goals: advocacy/awareness, mentoring, networking/community building, and career development.
WISAY offers many events and programs to fulfill these goals throughout the year.
Their largest program is a mentoring program that matches undergrads with grad students and grad students with postdocs. The initial WISAY mentoring program only paired grad students with undergrads, but it was expanded 2 years ago to pair post docs with grad students for one-on-one mentoring. Expanding yet again on the success of this program, this year WISAY started including faculty mentoring of postdocs, in which a female faculty member meets with a small group (under 6) of postdocs for regular mentoring sessions.
To increase awareness within its community and beyond, WISAY has an annual panel on various topics. This year’s topic was “Strategies to increase diversity in STEM,” and last year’s topic was “Progress for Women in the Physical Sciences: how far have we come, what more can we do?”. WISAY organizes various social events to increase interactions within the Yale community and provides opportunities for networking amongst its members. They also have a career panel once a year and invite science Ph.Ds working in different fields to share insights into various careers outside of academia. Finally, every year WISAY nominates and invites a speaker for their “Distinguished Women in Science Award.” Last year, they invited Dr. Joan Brugge, Cell Biology Professor from Harvard Medical School and the Director of the Ludwig Center. This year, they are inviting Dr. Melissa Franklin, a Professor in the Department of Physics at Harvard University. Dr. Franklin’s seminar will be on March 25th (location to be announced later).
WISAY is an entirely trainee-run organization, and is also aimed primarily at trainees (grad students, post docs, and undergrads), however many faculty members are involved in different ways. WISAY works often with specific Yale faculty such as Dr. Valerie Horsley (Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology), Dr. Jennifer Frederick (Executive Director, Center for Teaching and Learning, Yale University), Dr. Megan King (Assistant Professor of Cell Biology, School of Medicine), Dr. Meg Urry (Chair, Department of Physics and Director of the Yale Center for Astronomy & Astrophysics), Dr. Priya Natarajan (Professor in the Department of Astronomy & Physics), and many others. These faculty members regularly serve on panels, and lead workshops for WISAY. WISAY also has a formal relationship with Dr. Andrew Miranker (Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry and of Chemical Engineering), who supports WISAY through the biophysics training grant.
WISAY also has an ongoing collaboration with the Women Faculty Forum (currently chaired by Paula Kavathas, Professor of Laboratory Medicine, of Immunobiology and of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology; Associate Chair for Research; Director, Science Education Outreach Program), who has served as a WISAY panelist in the past. WISAY and WFF organize at least one joint-event per year. In 2014 a joint WFF-WISAY luncheon gave students and postdocs the opportunity sit down and have lunch with a female faculty member (or 2) and discuss a variety of topics. WISAY is planning to schedule another WFF-WISAY luncheon in March 2015.
Additionally WISAY connects with faculty members at the events they organize, especially their large advocacy/awareness event every fall, and through their email list.
This year WISAY is launching a new series of lecture lead by Dr. Valerie Horsley on the topic of Combating fears in science. Dr. Horsley is Yale’s Maxine F. Singer ’57 Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology. The first series session focused on “Talking to your PI about expectations and career goals”. Dr. Horsley, who is dedicated to promoting good mentorship, openly discussed issues (without judgment) and shared the view point of a trainee and a trainer. During the session, she had students list their expectations of a PI/research advisor. She then had students help her to create a list of what trainees thought their advisors expect of them. She then discussed ways in which we can take an active role in getting what we want/need. For more information about WISAY, go to http://wisay.sites.yale.edu/
Dr. Valerie Horsley, WISAY