Undergraduate Women’s Leadership Institute

The Undergraduate Women’s Leadership Institute (the Institute) is a multi-day educational forum dedicated to nurturing and challenging undergraduate women students to discover their full potential as leaders on their campuses working towards positive social change. Undergraduate women from across the fourteen state campuses network with their peers in an intense, informative and creative hands-on workshop that empowers and challenges them to develop and practice their leadership skills in advocating on behalf of women’s issues.

The five-day institute brings together selected students from all fourteen campuses to the beautiful McKeever Environmental Center for an intense and in-depth exploration of women’s leadership opportunities and issues amongst the youth through presentations, hand-on activities, skills-building, self-assessments, service learning projects, and campus projects.

Goals

To establish and facilitate a network of undergraduate women leaders across the state system campuses actively working on identifying, addressing and monitoring women’s issues on campuses
To develop peer mentoring and youth-led leadership skills
To develop and nurture women’s leadership skills, creativity, and respect for diversity
To provide learning opportunities for undergraduate women to interact informally with faculty and staff
To model positive, effective and nurturing mentoring relationships between undergraduate women, staff and faculty
To expand women’s awareness of the history of women’s activism nationally and globally and current issues impacting gender equality and social justice
To facilitate undergraduate women to develop campus projects pertaining to women’s issues to practice the leadership and advocacy skills learned at the Institute

Format of the Institute

PASSHE-affiliated faculty and staff as well as guest speakers present sessions on a variety of topics ranging from women’s leadership styles and skills to the history of women’s activism. Sample sessions include identifying leadership styles, the PACE palette, history of women’s activism nationally and globally, women’s health and leadership issues, economic self-sufficiency and financial empowerment for women, and other relevant gender and women’s issues. Institute participants work in small groups on short team-building projects; participate in discussions; and engage in role-play to clarify and practice key concepts covered during the sessions. The Institute includes outdoor recreational opportunities that involves service-learning projects. The multi-day institute has literature, music and video by and for women and about women’s issues available at the site.

Student Application Information

Campuses may develop their own application process to nominate students for the Institute, but the Consortium strongly recommends nominating students who exhibit the potential for leadership skills, rather than students who already perform a leadership role within the campus community. Applications may be downloaded from the website (see link here) or requested from the local campus Consortium chapters, the President’s Commission on the Status of Women, or the Women and Gender Studies programs. Campuses may develop their own internal process to screen and select the attendees. Once campuses have forwarded the names of the Institute participants to the Institute Directors, participants will be contacted directly with further information about the Institute. The Institute Directors will keep campus faculty/staff contacts informed about the Institute details. A copy of the student information form is linked above for download.

Participant Responsibilities

Campus faculty/staff contacts for the Institute will assist selected participants in registering for the conference and in completing all required PASSHE Institute and local campus release forms, including those for travel. Participants are responsible for travel to and from the Institute. Participants agree to comply with Institute policies including those pertaining to personal conduct and university honor codes, as well as specific off-campus policies pertaining to individual campuses. Participants agree to read all Institute reading materials, and take an active part in the Institute activities. Upon returning back to their campuses, participants agree to develop a campus project pertaining to women’s issues, and which enriches the campus climate for women. Participants are required to submit a written report to the Consortium regarding their campus project within six months of completion of the project.

Costs

The registration fee for the Institute is 500 dollars per student that is paid for by the campuses in a variety of ways. Individual campuses will have their own funding model for the Institute. The Consortium recommends sending at least two students from each campus. Participants are responsible for travel to and from the Institute as well as personal expenses incurred during the week.