College for Women, Voices for the World

COLLEGE FOR WOMEN,

New College for Women programming comes to life

Students in the Mary Baldwin College for Women (MBCW) get the best of both worlds: a meaningful community of support plus resources and opportunities across the larger university. And that relationship between college and university, now in its second year as a fully co-educational institution, is symbiotic. With new programming and experiences in full swing, the College for Women carries forward to all of MBU ideas and initiatives centered around women, and more broadly around awareness, inclusion, and equity.

New programing kicked off immediately during New Student Days in August when first-years in the College for Women attended a two-day retreat, led by Lawanda Ravoira, president and CEO of the Delores Barr Weaver Policy Center.

Exploring ways of knowing themselves and other women, the retreat focused on helping students access their strengths for the betterment of society. This self-empowerment and strengthfinding continues throughout students’ first year.

“I had the pleasure to meet Lawanda Ravoira during our retreat, and it was one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had,” said Angie Contreras ’22. “I was able to learn so much about myself, and she created a safe environment for all of us to speak about our experiences as women in our current society. It was truly enlightening.”

Students were also essential in creating the renewed slate of events for MBCW. Out of the two-day retreat in August came ideas that were put into action this past fall. A series of

Photos: (l-r) Hana Lagana ’22, Aszure “Ace” Verling ’22, Dean Carey Usher, and Savanna McGavock ’22 gather in front of the College for Women’s home in McClung.

Empowerment Hours covered topics like gender in the media and representations of the Biblical Eve in society, and brought local alumni to campus for conversations about women’s leadership. College for Women students also gathered together at games to support their Fighting Squirrels, and traveled to Richmond for Pfizer’s Consumer Healthcare Career Day and to Washington, D.C., for the Women’s March.

“We’re being intentional about setting up women-centered programming that also ties into the larger community,” College for Women Dean Carey Usher said. “Our message is about maintaining the importance and value of women’s voices in the context of current events and things happening right now.”

First-year students in the College for Women, or MBCW, are also introduced to college life through a women-centered lens in MBCW 177, an orientation class that meets weekly. The focused course prefix is no accident: at a faculty meeting last spring, the new identifier “MBCW” was unanimously approved, showing university-wide support for the academic component of the College for Women.

Also debuting this fall were improvements to the bottom floor of McClung Residence Hall, now featuring a newly renovated student lounge and Usher’s office. The new lounge features comfortable group seating, fresh paint and warm lighting, an updated kitchen, and framed archival photographs highlighting the legacy of the College for Women. A fitting home for MBU’s historic heart, McClung was built around Brick House, where founder Mary Julia Baldwin and her right-hand woman Agnes McClung resided in the late 1800s. Many first-year College for Women students live here with their upper-class peers.

Launching this spring are more initiatives — peer-to-peer mentoring work among College for Women students plus the pilot program for alumnae-student mentoring, facilitated by an innovative software program; creating a leadership portfolio through the student-success platform Portfolium; and interested first-year students will prepare for their sophomore-year internship taking See the Girl’s programming into area schools. Through a generous donation by Donna Smith ‘70 (see page 43 for more), the two-day Leadership Symposium will also take shape in the spring, as students invite women leaders from

around the country to come to campus for lectures, workshops, networking, and community outreach. The symposium also integrates with the 2018–19 university-wide theme of “citizenship.”

Women-centered education continues to hold strong meaning for the larger university. The College for Women creates an environment that extends to all students, and a communitywide commitment to hearing empowered women’s voices. And it might just help open up society to hear them, too. As the same community of support that unites College for Women students — across backgrounds and future goals — scales up, a more just and equitable world seems like an achievable reality.

“As we pursue gender equity, I want to highlight the reach that our program at Mary Baldwin has,” said Usher. “It’s not just about our students when they are here, but about how they can take their voices and their strengths out into the world and make those changes, just because of who they are.”

Board Chair Jane Miller ’76 (r) stands with President Pamela Fox in McClung Residence Hall.

Renovations to McClung were made possible by a $250,000 donation by Jane Miller ’76, chair of the Board of Trustees and a dedicated supporter of the College for Women and Mary Baldwin.