On May 27th-30th, I went to University of Maryland, College Park for the National Conference for College Women Student Leaders (NCCWSL) to present the semester long Campus Action Project (CAP) Women of Color Coalition’s Telling Our Stories in a Workshop dedicated to combating women of color stereotypes. I, one of CAP team members, along with Megan, the advisor of the CAP, had fifteen minutes to talk about the semester long project and how our project addressed the stereotypes women of color are associated with and just importantly how they can reject it in favor for more nuanced stories and counter-narratives.Before I get to the presentation, I would like to talk about overall conference and its inner workings. These include the workshops, the keynote speakers, and the feminist camaraderie. 

UMBC represented at NCCWSL! Here Bree is with two other UMBC students, Isabel and Vanessa.

NCCWSL, sponsored by American Association for University Women (AAUW) and National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA),  is a three day excursion that takes you from workshop to workshop, keynote speakers, and moments to network throughout the day. I came to UMD on Wednesday, May 27 at around 8:30pm, settled in, tried to plan my few days at NCCWSL, and then fell asleep at around 12am. On Thursday, I woke up at around 8am got ready for the $tart $mart salary negotiation workshop. While getting ready, I met my roommate for the conference, Shauna, who just graduated from a university in Iowa. She and her advisors drove from Iowa to be at NCCWSL and present a workshop on their CAP project which was one big event involving women in male dominated fields. I liked the $mart $tart workshop (which are also offered, here at UMBC once a semester!) because it gave me the tools to know my worth going into a job and the confidence to argue for that worth. But still at the end of the workshop, I was still struggling with the idea of negotiating my salary but the leaders of the workshop were really helpful in reassure me about its merits. Then I went to the Finding your Voice and Sharing Voice workshops which  helped me and other conference goers hone in our voices and share them around us. I loved the speed networking workshop because I feel like I have a handle on networking but I need to pickup the pace with it while meeting other women.Then I went to the Women of Distinction Awards ceremony and I enjoyed the diversity of the people being recognized for their work in opening more doors for women to make more successful strides. I got a picture with Elizabeth Acevedo and Amanda Simpson and thanked them for their words of wisdom and hope.

Meeting Elizabeth Acevedo at the Women of Distinction Awards.

The next day began with an empowering breakfast with fellow college women leaders and the sounds of the women drummers from the Bele Bele Rhythm Collective and then a great keynote by Maysoon Zayid, an actress, comedienne, and writer. If you have no idea who Zayid is, here is her Ted talk about having cerebral palsy and acting. She said some amazing and moving things about the leadership and inclusivity not only among gender and race but also ability. I felt like it was great bringing ability into context of activism and leadership because not everyone can go to protests and do physical action related things when it comes to activism. I really loved that addition to the line up as something to consider when leading a group. I transitioned from Zayid’s keynote to the From Silence to Self-Authorship: Storytelling for Empowerment workshop where talked about reading stories as children and what was missing from them. As expected, we talked about women’s stories as well as women of color stories are completely missing from young children’s stories and trying to find ways to start including those narratives in our present world. It was nice to see other people notice what I was noticing throughout my childhood. Then I went to the Career Fair and Dismantling Double Standard: Combating Gender Stereotypes on Campus which focused on other universities CAP Presentations related to about rape culture, domestic abuse, and racial discrimination. What I took from most of the workshop was shedding light on the different people effected by the double standard and how we can support them and create an area for people to share. After that workshop, my workshop group Addressing Stereotypes of Women of Color through a Gendered lens was up next!

Presenting at NCCWSL!

Throughout the bustle of the conference, I managed to review my slides and major points that I wanted my audience to take away from the presentation. I was still very nervous but as soon as I got up and fumbled through my introduction I was ready! We asked about stereotypes and microaggressions  that the audience hears on a regular basis. Each answer to the question was well received with snaps, claps, and nods in solidarity with their replies. We talked about the idea we developed from Women of Color Coalition discussions and interests. The we discussed the photo campaign and its reception (34,000+ notes on Tumblr :-D). We discussed the people we utilized to embody the message of storytelling, from national speakers, Franchesca Ramsey keynote lecture for Critical Social Justice Week  and Shit White Girls Say to Black Girls fame, to community artists QueenEarth and Hollywood Infinite who are  singers, songwriters, and spoken word artists, to institutional scholars, Professor Kimberly Moffitt discussing the politics of woman of color hair.We then shared the experience of the showcase which was the culminating event. We ended by telling our own stories of how the project impacted our thinking about having a discussion of racism through creative means like this project. I told the story about a white guy saw my poster which said, “My name is Bree and I’m not white on the inside.” He bristled then asked me if it was offensive to make a comment about someone being “white on the inside” and replied with yes and an explanation about agency and how you are actively telling your black friend a story about himself that he probably does not identify with. He looked at me with disbelief and then said that no one explained to him why things like this was offensive. He thanked me for widening his perceptions and giving him something to think about. I left with the knowledge of engaging with people that I would have otherwise thought they won’t understand the politics behind identity. The audience loved my story about my interaction with the white presenting guy. We got some questions and applause for our work. I felt a deep connection with this particular group and their willingness to hear our project and its inner workings. I will take that with me throughout my life knowing that the work that I do is important, the critical racial lens I bring to discussion, and have confidence in those two things.

Presenting at NCCWSL!

Throughout the planning and after presenting this particular project, I developed deep pride for the project and I hope to carry the spirit of Telling Our Stories alive beyond just this spring semester. I was genuinely shocked that it was so well received and that people were talking about it every where I was at the conference and some of the AAUW interns were buzzing about it. They even wrote a blog post about our presentation and how amazing it was to here about the way that we had to present. Getting to talk to other college women student leaders about their struggles and triumphs was really relieving. Seeing women of color in student affairs and doing other things besides being a bell hooks, Patricia Hill Collins, or Kimberly Crenshaw was really awe-inspiring because it shows me that I can do the important social justice work I was born to do and work up to the black feminist philosophy. Overall, I felt pretty welcomed in the conference, not only in physical presence, but also in suggesting ideas and talking to different people about general things that I am doing and in life. I didn’t have to preface things about the social justice work I do because the other attendees are doing the same work I am doing. It felt pretty intersectional from the keynote speakers to the workshops to the college women student leaders I talked with. This experience helped me in so many different ways I am glad I had the opportunity to represent the Women Center through the Women of Coalition. As I left NCCWSL, I brought with me a confidence that was always with me and an eagerness to make a difference that gives me hope that I can make my aspirations come true.

Hi Everyone!

I hope you are having a great summer break! Here is some information that I would like to pass along.

Next month, the Law School Admission Council (LSAC) will be hosting a LawSchool Forum  in Washington DC for prospective law students.

LSAC Law School Forums are the only events that allow prospective lawstudents to chat with up to 185 ABA-approved law school representatives in one convenient setting. Attendees also have the ability to go to exclusive workshops, including About the LSAT (Meet an LSAT Developer), Financing a Legal Education, The Application Process, Diversity Information Panel, and more.

All LSAC Law School Forums are free to attend. Each year, thousands of prospective law school students attend the forums, which make them great networking events.

I have attached a flier provides dates and how to sign up. If this interests you, please check out the website.

See you in fall!

When the unrest swelled again in Baltimore on Monday, April 27th, 2015, UMBC was in the midst of studying for final exams and preparing for the end of the semester. For many, the Uprising seemed well removed from our campus, as a perceived sense of distance from the city belies the significance of the ‘B’ in UMBC. Aside from periodically checking the local news updates or receiving a swell of calls and messages from concerned relatives on Facebook, studying and campus night life went on as usual. For some students, the reality of a Baltimore in chaos mere miles away didn’t sink in until they saw fires burning from the 7th floor of Albin O. Kuhn Library.

But for many others, those fires were burning our city—our home.

As members of the Critical Social Justice team unpacked the events that transpired in Baltimore, we struggled to find balance in the divide between the university and Baltimore. The divide, for example, between staying at home in the city to engage in a movement for Black lives or leaving the city for UMBC to create healing spaces, meet with students in need, and challenge those who had yet to understand the complexities and vast differences between riots and uprisings. The reality of an “us” and a “them” felt very real as we navigated back and forth on campus during those next few days. While on campus, it was easy to think through theory, strategize, and simply talk about Baltimore in the abstract; however, at night with the sounds of helicopters and sirens invading through our windows, we desperately needed our other UMBC community members to think beyond Hilltop Circle.

Baltimore City and the pervasive violence and injustice there can no longer be talked about in the abstract. Whether or not Baltimore is your home, Critical Social Justice calls each of us in this privileged community of higher education to think and engage critically about Baltimore. We cannot only think about the city when we see a fire from the library or when the Ravens win the Super Bowl. Much like Critical Social Justice is a year-long campaign, our critical thinking, action, and care for Baltimore must happen all 365 days a year.

This year’s Critical Social Justice initiative aims to create space and learning opportunities to consider the ways we can cultivate deep and lasting commitments to Baltimore City that are meaningful to us as individuals and as part of the UMBC community. By focusing on Baltimore, we aim to engage with local social justice issues and activism while framing our understanding within the context of larger national movements and ongoing struggles against systemic racism and injustice.

Our campus and our city are not as separate as they may seem at our quiet university—nor are they as readily connected as our proximity and names might lead people to believe. Critical Social Justice: Baltimore 365 knits the UMBC and Baltimore communities together in the hopes of growing into a better UMBC through a better Baltimore.

Critical Social Justice: Baltimore 365 will be held on October 19th through 23rd, 2015. Follow the CSJ blog, Facebook, and Twitter for updates on scheduled events and other news. For more information about the Critical Social Justice initiative, or if you’re organizing a related event that week that might be included on the CSJ calendar, please email womens.center@umbc.edu.

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The deadline to submit your application of interest is Monday, August 3, 2015.

A blog reflection written by Women’s Center student staff member, Carrie Cleveland

For the past ten years I have not had a paying job.  For the past ten years I have been home raising children.  For the past ten years my boss (or bosses) were little people who required me to tend to their every need. That is not a job where anyone gives you money.  There are performance reviews, bonuses, deadlines, and a ton of stress, but no monetary paycheck.

This week I started my first paying job in ten years.  I am the newest student staff member at the Women’s Center.  I am helping to program the Peer Connections Program for Returning Women Students for the next academic year.  Day one was perfect.  I was here on time, got my work done and went home without any drama.  Day two, well that is a different story.

Two hours into my five hour shift I got a phone call from my daughter’s school.  Luckily my husband was home so he could handle the situation, but he seems to forget that I am a work.  I am here to do a job and I am not available to answer every question immediately.  Now, I am not a globe-trotting mechanical engineer like he is, but this is a job and something that means a great deal to me.  So, after a quick little vent to my supervisor, Jess, I realize I may need to set some limits with him.

As I enter the world of a working person again, this means that some things in my home life will change.  I feel like it is a good build up to when I have a full time job as a social worker in a couple of years.  I also think it is great that my three daughters see that mom can do things that are important to her and that my life does not completely revolve around their lives.  So here I am.  A working mom.  Not a title I ever envisioned for myself, but I kinda dig it.

Meet Isabel – the founder of the UMBC Reach Initiative.

This is a guest post written by UMBC rising junior, Isabel Geisler, who is leading the charge for a new initiative on campus called The Reach Initiative.

When I was 4 or 5 years old, I wanted to be an Astronaut. Mostly, because it was the closest career to being a Jedi, but I also loved space, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and theoretical physics.

I remember one night when I was young my sister and I were waiting for our mother to come home from work.  We were excited because on that night, Nova was doing a special on Quantum Physics. There was one part I remember specifically, where the host is pushing up against a wall and telling the audience how theoretically, if he pushed against the wall long enough for thousands and thousands of years there is a chance that he could just push his arm though the solid wall.

This is obviously a gross over-simplification…but for a 5 year old, this was the closest I could get to magic.

“Quantum Physics: The Fabric of the Cosmos” you can still look up the show today, I even found out that the entire episode is actually from a book by Brian Greene. Last winter, I saw it in a used bookstore, but didn’t buy it because I didn’t think I’d understand it. I don’t know when and why specifically I lost interest in pursuing physics, but I’m guessing it started when I got my first ‘B’ in math and I hate to psychoanalyze myself…but this is how it starts off and ends for many young women who were previously interested in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) fields.

When we look at the STEM fields and look at the proportion of women and men who are pursuing degrees you will find that the majority are men. When speaking of primary education, boys are 6 times more likely than girls to have taken engineering. When speaking of college, the gap gets wider. Despite the fact that roughly 58% of all college students are women, in a computer science class men will outnumber women at a ratio of 8:2. When speaking of professional careers, on average, men will hold about 76% of all STEM jobs. These percentages are reflected across the US –including UMBC- and this does not even begin to include the gaps between Women of Color and their representation in the fields.

The STEM pipeline is the term used to describe this phenomenon. At every gap in this pipeline, for example, elementary school to middle school, we see women dropping out of STEM. Many assert that this is simply because women are not interested in a career that is famous for being unsociable and sterile. This is the wrong assumption.  If we were to look at the experiences of many women in STEM, we would find an ongoing trend of implicit bias, discrimination, and a lack of institutional support. The gross underrepresentation of women in the STEM fields is not only unfair, but it is dangerous.  How can our society expect to be innovative when 50% of our intellectual power is missing from the STEM workforce? 

There have been many successful programs that aim to get women interested in STEM, but very few of them acknowledge the inherent bias in the STEM fields that many women struggle with. In the program that I am leading at UMBC, the UMBC Reach Initiative we do not simply want to encourage young women to enter into the STEM fields, we want to retain them. We want to create a network in a world where sometimes that network is non-existent.

For more on the UMBC Reach Initiative, visit their Facebook page!

The Reach Initiative is a yearlong program mentorship and research program for high school women who are interested in entering the STEM fields based on the research by the American Association for University Women, Girls Scouts, and several independent organizations funded by the National Science Foundation.  In our first semester, we will provide our scholars a chance to explore the STEM fields, but we have also infused gender empowerment into the curriculum, with varying topics from combatting micro-aggressions to consent. During the second semester, the young women in our program will work with her UMBC mentor to create a research project that they can enter into science fairs and that they will present to their peers, families, and UMBC faculty at an end-of-the-year banquet.

We are currently looking for mentors for the young women who have decided to be a part of the program. If you are a passionate women attending UMBC who is pursuing a degree in the STEM fields or Environmental Science you can find the application here and a link to our FaceBook page here if you would like to learn more.

If you find yourself unable to apply as a mentor because you are not pursuing a STEM degree, do not have the time to commit, or are a female student please contact me at my e-mail (geisler3 at umbc dot edu) to learn more about how you can contribute or act as a leader as we pursue this project.

We are proud to announce that the annual Critical Social Justice week will be moving to fall semester. We’ll see you Monday October 19th through Friday October 23rd, 2015! Save the date!