Women Wednesdays FSU

President

Mission: Women Wednesdays FSU is a social, mentoring organization that helps women with life during college and the transition after graduation by promoting campus resources.

Since January 2018, I have had the opportunity to work on Women Wednesdays FSU as a class project and registered student organization. I was enrolled in an Information Technology Leadership course the Spring 2018 semester where I co-lead a brand new project called Women Wednesdays. Our goal was to promote the off-campus Women Wednesdays organization to students through a series of meetings. Women Wednesdays is a group of women in the Tallahassee area that meet weekly to co-work on projects and small businesses, hold a speaker series with fellow entrepreneurs, and hold women-empowering events. My co-leader and I held two meetings where we led a discussion on the importance of women in our fields and how we can work to empower women on campus. This is when we decided to create a registered student organization.

In the Fall 2018 semester, I took the necessary steps to become a registered student organization. A task that challenged me was coming up with a mission. What was the organization going to be about? What would our meetings consist of? I knew I wanted something different than the other organizations under the College of Communication & Information. They were all career-focused and school related so I figured why not cover topics outside of the classroom? I knew there were plenty of helpful resources on campus that people may not know about. I also knew people were interested in knowing those non-academic things, like “What is something healthy that I can cook for dinner tonight?” “What do I do at the gym?” “How do I take out a loan?” and “How will I defend myself if I am in a sketchy situation?”

That is what the mission is based off of.

In order to gain members, the executive board and I promoted our brand new organization through social media and at involvement fairs. I had a Women Wednesdays FSU Facebook page from the project that I used to create Facebook events and invite friends. I also had the two Social Media Chairs create Instagram posts on our account about upcoming meetings and events. We would also post the links on the Twitter account. At the Involvement Fairs, the Recruitment Chair would stand at the table and speak to students about our organization, what we had planned, and would have them write down their name and email. The Secretary would keep an email list and send emails two times before each meeting/event.

I met with the Executive Board 2-3 times a semester to go over upcoming meetings, tasks they would need to complete, and if they had any ideas on what we could do to improve. We came up with meeting ideas that we figured would be helpful and would attract attendees.

Here are our meetings and events during the Spring 2019 semester:

  • Managing Your Budget: An employee at Financial Aid spoke to us about handling loans and the importance of being financially stable.
  • Staying Fit & Healthy: Personal Fitness Trainers from Campus Recreation spoke to us about how to stay fit and gave some sample exercises for us to do.
  • Mental Health & Self Image: A counselor from University Counseling spoke to us about the importance of mental health and how to maintain a healthy image of ourselves.
  • Women in Leadership Conference: Our Executive Board volunteered at the event and we promoted our organization to women in the Tallahassee area during the tabling portion.
  • Elinor Phipps Park with WISE: Our organization partnered with Women in IT/ICT Sharing Experiences (WISE) to have a social event. We held a morning nature walk in Elinor Phipps Park that our advisor led.
  • Self Defense: Two campus officers of FSU Police spoke to us about how to defend ourselves and showed a couple of defensive moves.
  • Nutrition & Eating Well: An intern at the Center for Health Advocacy & Wellness (CHAW) spoke to us about how to eat right and gave some sample recipes for healthy meals.
  • Preparing for Finals: The Executive Board and I shared personal tips on how to prepare for finals and take care of ourselves.

For meetings, I would reserve a place in the Innovation Hub on campus. I also created a PowerPoint that I would share during the meetings. I would state the mission, introduce the Executive Board, share the upcoming meetings and events, share events from other on and off-campus organizations, and introduce the speaker. We averaged about 10-15 attendees a meeting and ended the school year with around 100 followers on our Facebook and Instagram accounts.

I enjoyed being the President of Women Wednesdays FSU during its first year. Creating the mission was an honor and I feel that our meeting topics and events helped our attendees. They would come up to me after the meetings and tell me that they learned a great deal. Women empowerment, healthy living, and Florida State are topics I am very passionate about and utilizing them in an organization made my senior year special.