Women’s History Month began in March 1987. Since then, the month has served to recognize the amazing achievements of women across the country. Right here at the University of Delaware, there are several organizations that are both women-led and solely for the career development of women. These include but are not limited to Women in Business, Society of Women Engineers, The Women’s Network and Sisters on the Move.

While each of these organizations cater to different industries, they all are focused on breaking the glass ceiling to make more career fields feasible for women. 

Women in Business Vice President Sanika Nawathe said the RSO allows members of many majors because the lessons they want to teach are applicable across areas of interest.

“We are open to all majors, not only Lerner students, and we have been focused on outreach for business adjacent majors,” said Nawathe. “[This includes] fashion merchandising, communications and even engineering. Since many women will end up working in some type of corporate or business structure, they should develop the skills to put them on the same level as their male counterparts.”

The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) is tailored specifically to STEM students. Female representation is largely missing in STEM, whether it be professors or students themselves.

“Though my own biomedical engineering major has the highest percentage of women of all of the engineering disciplines at UD, many of our SWE members are largely underrepresented in their own majors, and most have never had a female professor,” said SWE President Katy Strand.

SWE holds events—including Tea with SWE—to invite UD professors and alumni to speak on their career paths and offer advice.

“This representation allows students to see possibilities for themselves within engineering when they may not always see others like themselves working in these roles,” said Strand. “Going forward into a more male-dominated field, having held this position gives me more confidence in my overall abilities as a leader.”

RSOs like The Women’s Network—the largest collegiate women’s networking organization in the U.S.—encourage female-identifying college students to keep striving and thriving.

“Part of our mission statement is to ‘redefine ambition’ to take away its negative connotation and make it a positive attribute to women in the workplace in any field, and this message really resonated with me,” said The Women’s Network UD President Hailey Dearborn. “On UD's campus, I have only ever felt uplifted and supported as a woman in a leadership role. This means so much to me and I greatly appreciate all of the mentorship and support that I have received from the women in leadership roles in my own life.”

The Women’s Network aims to give students the same support that Dearborn has experienced by giving them a safe space to voice their opinions.

“Equal opportunity is so important in combating this issue, but so is creating a workplace culture in which women also feel comfortable speaking up for themselves and their ideas,” said Dearborn. “Only then can women truly be properly represented in the workplace.” 

This is especially true for women of color whose intersectional identities are often scarce in career fields occupied by white men. Sisters on the Move (SOTM) prioritizes the success of historically underrepresented female-identifying students to empower young women of color to achieve excellence. President Najae Corprew-Rivers immediately felt this RSO was the right fit for her.

“The reason I joined is because I not only wanted to be involved on campus but SOTM was something I felt like represented me and what I want for women of color at a predominantly white institution,” she said.

For students like Corprew-Rivers, campus leadership roles are just the beginning. The long-term impact goes beyond the walls of the classroom or within campus.

“The more women that are represented in a workplace to me means our voices are being heard,” said Corprew-Rivers. “I want to feel comfortable where I work and know that I have other women that I can relate to when it comes to a job, especially one run predominantly by men.”

These campus leaders are working to make a difference in their respective fields and hope to inspire younger generations of women, so that one day female leaders are no longer the exception, but the norm.

“To me, women’s representation means having women across all levels in a business, especially as team leaders since they can provide a different view of problems and new solutions,” said Nawathe. “By having increased female representation in business, younger girls realize that there is a place for them.”

This blog post was written by our Division of Student Life student intern Esha Shah.