Reflections for the Day

Today has been a long and tumultuous day. I have finally seen the fruit of WomenNC's labor really come to fruition. These young students are amazing. What really gets me is how fascinated they are. How dedicated they are. How interested they are. How willing they are. How passionate they are. They are all around wonderful. I'm just awestruck at how well they are received and how they are conducting themselves. They are truly professional.

The presentation yesterday was extremely well attended. This picture above proves it. The capacity of this particular room was about 70 people. There were no chairs left at the peak of the presentation. This was a view at the start before the presentations started. Many more sauntered in. Truly a great turn out. Prof. Hershfield orchestrated the position of emcee extremely well. She did a wonderful job and we are so thankful to have her as a Student Fellowship Chair.

Each student did their presentation beautifully. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to tape the whole presentation, but a video clip of the presentations will hopefully be made in the near future with the parts I did get to tape. But, this wasn't what I was worried about at all. I knew they would all do a great job. I had no doubt in my mind. To me, Questions and Answer sessions and making sure to network with these people at the end of the session was what seemed to be the part we had missed explaining. But, again, I was astounded. It was handled with such poise and finesse. We even had June Zeitlin step in and answer a few questions on CEDAW. She is the director of the CEDAW Education Project. We took a picture with her as well as seen above. Below, you can see how involved the students were with people after the presentation as well!

These presentations were so well received that in one day, people are recognizing us as the North Carolina group once again. Women and men have approached these girls asking about their studies and how they got involved and they are quick to mention WomenNC and how it has helped them. I'm so proud of them.

Directly after this amazing session, we held another for Prof. Hershfield's screening of Men are Human, Women are Buffalo. It was EXTREMELY well attended as well. The film was amazing. There were no technical difficulties. Much of the credit goes to Prof. Hershfield and Kristen Brugh on that front for being so quick about getting everything set up. I could not imagine a better session than that. The film and the discussion that followed was truly inspirational.

As I have worked with these students and gotten to know them better over the past few days, I feel we have become a small knit family. I feel like a sister to them in many ways. They are all talented, professional, hard working, passionate, inspirational, cultured and real women. I'm very humbled to meet each and be a part of this program with them. Annie, Kimmie, Katie, and Kristen have been a joy to be with on this trip and I cannot wait to watch them bring the global perspective they have gained here back to their local audience.