Though many in the Hillsdale community love the events put on by the college, not many of them are oriented towards serving women from different parts of campus. Associate Dean of Women Rebekah Dell and Director of Student Programs Ashlyn Neveau 16’ have organized an event just for that purpose.
“One of the goals of the event is to bring together our diverse community of women and have them share in a one day opportunity to cultivate community, inspire authenticity in one another, and seek to discover purpose in life,” Neveau said.
The female student body will be gathering at the Searle Center on Feb. 1 “to inspire women around engaging ideas, authentic community, and to discover our purposes,” according to the monthly Curate newsletter.
“A goal in doing this is to focus on the importance of female friendship and mentorship,” Dell said. “One of the biggest challenges is how you connect with someone a half generation from you. And we don’t give a lot of our students many opportunities to do that.”
The conference will consist of four breakout sessions. Each session will have speakers covering five topics: health and wellness, leadership, relationships, lifestyle and adulting 101. There will also be a keynote speaker, Christa Sharp Molter, a Hillsdale grad with her own consulting company.
“Her strengths fall along the lines of personal development,” Dell said. “She’s going to basically give wisdom on how to apply a lot of what was discussed throughout the day. ‘And answer how do you practically take all of these ideas and things discussed and learned and have it impact your life for growth?’”
Breakfast, lunch, and Penny’s coffee are provided, and the entire lower floor of Searle will be filled with interactive booths ranging from tea making to letter writing. Each booth is meant to cultivate a goal for each of the different topics discussed that day.
The five topics of the breakout session will be oriented towards inspiring women to achieve their goals and take a look at the bigger picture, according to Dell.
Dell said she chose the speakers for the breakout sessions because they were involved in the community, invested in it, and in some cases had gone to Hillsdale, thus giving them a common base of knowledge with which to connect to students.
“We decided to stick with primarily local alums or faculty or staff wives. People close within the community,” she said. “We wanted to share with the student body the broad range of things they can do with their lives. We also wanted women who genuinely want to invest in women.”
Junior Grace Stokman registered for the event because it presents a unique opportunity.
“I feel a duty to go to the conference because if it is responding to a real need of women on campus, I want to hear what these women have to say,” Stokman said. “I want to see if I share the same questions of the women on campus and if I do not, why the questions or needs are present among others.”
Asking questions in a group of women from different walks and stages of life is an intended purpose of the event, according to Dell.
“Our desire is that you have a student athlete sitting next to someone who spends most of their time in the music department sitting next to someone who is in the sciences sitting next to a Greek,” Dell said.
In bringing together a diverse group of people, Dell said the event will give each woman a better idea of herself and her goals.
“I hope every individual will walk away saying what it means to be a woman is learning who I am, what I am designed for, what my goals are, and how I can best accomplish those,” Dell said. “It’s not about trying to create this cookie cutter idea; it’s about equipping you. Everyone has unique talents and gifts.”
