Ohio University hosted the 15th Annual Women’s Virtual Conference on March 19 from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The day was full of many powerful women: entrepreneurs, advocates, members of law enforcement and more.
“I've attended the conference in person in the past, and was really rather curious as to how they were going to put this all together being virtual, although we've all started to hone up on our virtual skills over the last year for sure,” Molly S. Bates, assistant manager and retail manager at Park National Bank, said. “They did a wonderful job of making it very easy to access the different sessions and to participate as much or as little as you wanted to participate.”
The day started with a welcome from Laurie Lach, director of development and engagement at OU’s Regional Campus, and Nicole Pennington, executive dean for regional higher education and dean of OU’s Southern Campus.
The day was made to mentor, empower and network women with other women. Attendees were given an abundance of different choices for speakers to listen to during different sessions throughout the day.
Session A began with the welcoming and continued to a powerful panel of women who achieved at the highest level of their profession and shared their journey.
Erin Carlson Mast, president and CEO of Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation, talked about using her platform to acknowledge the history of women in the past, in order to empower women in their everyday workplace.
Barabara Ross-Lee, president-elect of the American Osteopathic Foundation, spoke about how success is a measure of opportunity. She highlighted how no one succeeds alone and in order to take opportunity, one has to have courage.
Elizabeth Sayrs, vice president and provost of OU, recognized imposter syndrome and intersectionality. She talked about how realizing her strengths led her to become a qualified leader. She encouraged women to realize that no matter their role, other people look up to them. She encouraged women to have impact where they can and to actively look for other leaders amongst them.
The panel members spoke more about how to use intersectionality as a superpower. They also spoke about microaggressions and how they are prominent in the workplace.
Following the welcoming was the first round of concurrent sessions. These sessions covered ways to give back to their local areas amid the pandemic; how to bring movement to everyday life that enhances pride and joy, and aligns with life values; and how people can build a brand for themselves by thinking about their mission, vision, values and attributes.
The next concurrent sessions continued the celebration of powerful women in everyday life and brought another array of influential options. These sessions covered how the speakers survived and thrived through the adversities; how women can identify their personal board of directors, cultivate allies and develop influence; the benefits of yoga and the power it holds when strengthening one's body; learning from mistakes and building friendships through networking; being a woman in the civil rights movement; how to step outside one’s comfort zone to find the women that will motivate their success; and different ways to cope with stress and practice self-care.
“I really like the networking to find your girl tribe because I think ... the lady that ran that, it was Wendy Anderson, was just fantastic,” Jamie Brunson, employment specialist at the Department of Navy's Fleet and Family Computer, said. “(She had) great stories that she talked about. I do a lot of training with military spouses on mentoring, and even with our military on mentoring and finding people to network with. I do a lot of networking as well with them. That's exactly what she was talking about — how difficult it can be to find a particular network, that girl tribe that you feel so comfortable with.”
With the morning sessions done, lunch time hosted the Celebrate Women Awards and the keynote address. In addition, a thanks was made to and from the Alumni Association.
The keynote address was made by Alison Levine, adventurer, best-selling author, motivational speaker and team captain of the first American Women’s Everest Expedition. She spoke about how everyone should live each day being the best they can and how there are times in life when people have to step up to the challenge. She shared that progress is not always linear — sometimes there has to be back tracking.
After the keynote speech came the awards. These included the Woman of Distinction Award, Woman of Vision Awards, Female Student Leader Awards and Leadership Awards.
The last concurrent sessions were full of opportunity and involved in-depth speeches and conversation. These sessions included how to write a book for enjoyment and building business or profit; struggles the speakers faced in the stereotypically male-dominated fields; the evolving progression of women in technology; how to conquer stressors in order to improve overall health through preparation, relaxation, reframing and maintaining physical health and well-being; working on self-awareness and helping to identify stressors and how to assist them in order to live a more fulfilling life; evaluating intersections of race, gender and species; and the gaps and barriers for women in public office and leadership positions.
The last general session of the day brought Cynthia Mendenhall, author, speaker, adventuress and career and leadership coach at OU, talked about bringing spunk to one’s life. She spoke about how courage and determination leads to hope and making life the best it can be. Mendenhall shared eight secrets in order to “spunkify” one’s life. She spoke about how to make everyday worth living, make everyday exciting and make life the life they want.
“I love when a speaker is a storyteller, and Cynthia Mendenhall, she was captivating with her storytelling,” Stacy L. Schindler, financial advisor at Edward Jones and OU alumna, said. “What can be challenging about storytelling, is that it can become too self-centered for the speaker, and that wasn't the case at all for her, and she was able to relate each of her stories to eight of the secrets. There were actionable items. I felt engaged as a participant, and honestly I fell in love with her.”
The last part of the event was a sponsor hour and door prizes. Attendees were able to learn more about Fairfield Medical Center, the Voinovich School of Leadership and the Public Affairs Online Degree and more.
With the end of the conference, women were left feeling empowered and looking forward to what’s in store next year.
“Women do not take enough time to reinvest in themselves,” Schindler said. “That can be women starting their career ... they could be women halfway through like me and women toward the end. We just don't take enough time to fill our cup — this was a great way not only to get professional insight that we can always apply to our life, there were so many great personal moments that this will really reflect. So when we think about the conference theme of ‘celebrate women.’ That was the one thing I really took away. I felt celebrated today, I felt poured into today. And I'm ending my day on a better note because of it.”
