Empowering women through education
Women have achieved enormous gains in higher education and the workplace in recent decades, are being educated in greater numbers than their male counterparts, and are powerful networkers - these are some of the messages which resonated with delegates at the Women’s Education Worldwide Conference held at the Women’s College within the University of Sydney 6-8 January 2010. Eighty international delegates gathered at the conference to discuss issues around the theme Empowering Women: The Economic Imperative. The opening address by Emeritus Professor Denise Bradley AC, Chair of the 2008 Review of Higher Education in Australia, stressed the need for organisations to collect data on women in education and staffing to ensure strategies for further empowerment are evidenced-based. Higher education is critical for national development and international interaction, and issues of access key to ensuring those with talent are able to participate. In the global context, this means a broader focus on movement-building and developing coalitions to ensure a continuing focus on the education of girls and women. Keynote speaker, celebrated public intellectual Wendy McCarthy AO, advised women to ensure that their networks are always political, strategic, powerful and global.
Principals and executive staff of women’s tertiary institutions in Dubai, Japan, Korea, China, the Unites States, Italy, India, Pakistan and the Philippines compared benchmarks across a range of issues, as well as learning about the Australian context. Sydney Women’s College Principal Dr Jane Williamson summed up: “Our group is extremely diverse in terms of institutional organisation, residential and non-residential status, small and large, local and international, but our common focus is unquestionably on empowering women students.” This overarching agenda for the conference was explored through seminars and panel sessions on mentoring, alumnae networks, community outreach such at the WATSA (Women’s College Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander Alliance) project, and student ambassadorships. A special youth strand convened on the final day of the conference encompassed a negotiation workshop and a debate on affirmative action amongst some of the students currently enrolled in women’s institutions.
Delegates were introduced to Sydney in spectacular style with an extensive social program for the conference which began with a welcome reception on the terrace of the Museum of Contemporary Art at Circular Quay. At the reception City of Sydney Councillor Marcelle Hoff launched Skirting Sydney, a map of sites significant to women’s history in Sydney. Delegates took in the sites at specially arranged tours, and also visited important feminist sites on the Sydney University campus. At the conference dinner, held in the Louisa Macdonald Dining Hall at College on the final evening of the conference, Women’s College alumna Dr Meredith Burgmann gave an exposé of the Ernie Awards for sexist behaviour.  |  |  globaledusky@gmail.com |
0 comments:
Post a Comment