On Saturday, March 29th at the Hadley Union Building (HUB), I was honored to attend IUP’s first ever Women’s Conference. “Her Journey, Our Inspiration” was an eight hour conference that included breakfast, lunch, breakout sessions, guest speakers, networking, resource fair and raffle prizes. Not only that but it consisted of over 100 women in our IUP community. Although it was an early start to my Saturday, I am so glad I decided to go and represent Her Campus at IUP as the current president.Â
We started off with name tags, freebies, introductions, and a continental breakfast (which was so yummy and nutritious btw). Then introductions were made by IUP’s Vice President Dr. Segar and the Director of Multicultural Student Affairs, Leslie Coates. After that breakout sessions formed where each woman attended 2 sessions.Â
The first session I attended was “Why Not Me?” presented by Dr. Fences Nee. Dr. Nee arrived at IUP in 1987 as the head mens and womens swimming coach, which led her career expanding through the NCAA. Her speech was absolutely inspiring as she talked about being a woman in a predominantly male field. She told stories of her hardships, how she overcame them and how that made her stronger. No matter how many bricks were thrown at her, she stood her ground saying, “I am not leaving” and “I deserve my seat at the table.” She truly opened my eyes to new aspects of being a woman, because she did all this in the 80’s which I can imagine is much harder than now.Â
The second session I attended was “Healing through Abundance: Embracing Joy and Wholeness as Women!” presented by Amobiya Nkromah. She is pursuing her doctorate in Counselor Education and Supervision and also a founder of her own private practice. Her presentation was more on the emotional side, really making you think about your own feelings. She was all about “knowing your why,” why as women do we feel we need to be superwoman everyday of our lives. Why do we and society put so much pressure on us, and still expect to be “poise” and “graceful.” She really opened my eyes on how to heal unapologetically, and give myself some grace because at the end of the day, this is my life no one else’s.Â
After those amazing sessions we had a delicious lunch catered to us by Romeo’s. We were given a presentation by IUP’s provost, Dr. Lara Luetkehans. She also shared her experience as an Italian-American woman who had to work her way up to get where she is today. I was honored to ask her how she managed being so many roles and yet still staying motivated to continue her career, and her answer was simply because “she loves every role.”
This was followed by an “Un-panel” discussion where we got to share our experiences as women and share motivating words. And in the end, we wrapped thing ups with takeaways, prizes and photos. For this being the first women’s conference, it turned out amazing and I am so happy I went, it was such a fun and inspiring experience!