An initiative headed up by a handful of student groups is looking to put more women into leadership positions on campus.
Elect Her is a joint effort of the Women’s Resource Center, Student Leadership Council and the American Association of University Women. The program is currently accepting nominations for its day-long training session on Feb. 2. Fifty students will be able to register and participate.
Tiara Dees is the communications coordinator for the Women’s Resource Center and supports participation in the program.
“Elect Her is a very unique opportunity, as this workshop trains UA undergraduate students in the skills they need to run for elected offices such as the Student Government Association and/or pursue other leadership-oriented positions,” Dees said. “The WRC is currently looking for organizations, faculty and staff members to nominate students for Elect Her.”
Jessi Hitchins, the assistant director of the Women’s Resource Center, said students at the workshop learn how to create campaign messages and communicate them effectively, as well as how to reach out and mobilize voters on campus.
“Research has shown that women who run for student body elections in college are more likely to run for office as adults,” Hitchins said. “Additionally, AAUW reports that women need to be encouraged, on average, at least three times to run for an office, while most men do not require any intervention. The training addresses the disparity between the high percentage of women in colleges and universities and their low percentage in student governments.”
According to a report by the American Association of University Women, women hold just 17 percent of the seats in the U.S. Congress and 24 percent of the seats in state legislatures. On the college level, women make up approximately 52 percent of all student government representatives, but only 43 percent of student government president spots, according to data collected by the American Student Government Association.
This trend also takes place at the Capstone. Out of the seven executive council members of the UA SGA, only one, Executive Secretary Brielle Appelbaum, is female.
“Pinning an exact reason as to why more women do not run for executive offices is difficult. Regardless of location, women are drastically underrepresented in elected office in this country, which is why Elect Her was born,” Zoe Storey, the student liaison for Elect Her, said. “To blame any one source as far as why women have not run is to ignore larger gender issues at play.”
Storey went on to say that sometimes, women do not feel as though they are qualified to run for elected office and are more likely not to run, as opposed to their male counterparts.
“As far as campus support goes, many organizations are supportive of women running for office,” Storey said. “Regardless of reasons as to why more women are not in elected SGA executive positions, Elect Her hopes to reverse that trend.”
News editor Melissa Brown contributed to this report.
