The “Elect Her” workshop should continue to be hosted on Syracuse University’s campus, but future events should encompass all types of female leadership.

“Elect Her,” a workshop for women pursuing an elected leadership position, will take place on Nov. 15. The first “Elect Her” took place last spring and included Mayor Stephanie Miner as the keynote speaker along with a panel of four female leaders from Student Association.

This workshop’s speakers include Syracuse Common Councilors At-Large Jean Kessner and Kathleen Joy, and female SA leaders making up the student panel.

If “Elect Her” is going to occur every semester coordinators should consider bringing in female leaders beyond SA or Syracuse politicians. Female students who are interested in women’s leadership, but not necessarily politics, could gain more from upcoming events if a wider array of speakers and female leaders of student groups were included on the panel.

The coordinators could reach out to female business leaders, entrepreneurs and women in science. Even if “Elect Her” does not return to campus, a similar event should embody more women leaders.

In addition to featuring more women leaders on campus, the coordinators of “Elect Her,” should attempt to establish a student organization that promotes female leadership.

“Elect Her” is a workshop taking place one day out of the entire semester. While it is beneficial to have a large event focusing on this topic, having a group that is constantly working to involve and encourage more female leaders would be an important asset to SU’s campus.

Whether or not “Elect Her” returns to campus next semester, events that promote women’s leadership should continue.

But “Elect Her” should expand beyond women in politics to all women’s leadership, and should also extend to an established organization on campus.

Correction: In the Nov. 12 editorial “‘Elect Her’ should expand to all leaders,” the purpose of Elect Her was misstated. According to Elect Her’s website, the program “encourages and trains college women to run for student government and future political office,” and addresses “the need to expand the pipeline to women running for office and to diminish the longstanding political leadership gap.” The process of organizing Elect Her was also misstated. Due to the requirements of the national “Elect Her” organization, the speakers must be involved in politics. The event is targeted to all Syracuse University students, not just female SU students who are interested in going into politics. The Daily Orange regrets these errors.

Published on November 12, 2014 at 12:01 am

Contact: opinion@dailyorange.com