After reading The Daily Orange’s editorial board’s depiction of “Elect Her” on Nov. 11, and hearing feedback from many students on campus, we felt compelled to clear the air on the issues raised within the editorial. We echo the board’s call for more women’s empowerment opportunities on campus, but maintain that the “Elect Her” program exists to build a pipeline of female student leaders running for office on campus and in their communities.

The American Association of University Women and Running Start have graciously provided this program for Syracuse University and 49 other campuses. While it is a program we encourage all women to attend — and have had women from all different fields attend — it exists to engage women in elected office because women are vastly underrepresented (as we should all be well aware of after this past election).  Campus organizers are required to connect participants with female officials in their community. Unfortunately elected women are hard to come by, so we do the best we can to have several and we are thrilled to welcome those who can donate their time to share their stories and advice.

We do not need a separate organization to promote female leadership — we need programs and supporters who will uplift women with the potential to lead and allow them to rise up within the ranks of their respective organizations. We must give women a seat at the proverbial table rather than creating a separate table for women altogether. We were fortunate to have male and female mentors during my campus leadership career. We are grateful to have had these opportunities and hope that existing faculty, administrators and students will continue to uplift aspiring female students and help us navigate gender-specific issues.

Last year we created Women’s Empowerment Week — a week of events to spread awareness of the issues women face in all male-dominated fields. While this would be great to hold again, we must work to promote women’s empowerment every day — not just during one week.

Thanks to the “Elect Her” team at SU, we renewed the membership to AAUW earlier this year so all women on campus can reap the benefits of free membership. We invite you to join us and engage with programing for women in a variety of capacities. I call all campus women to action in supporting each other in unique and meaningful ways.

Alexandra Curtis 2014
Charlotte Stockdale 2015