By Emma Gilham
This semester at the Women’s Center has been full of new experiences, program planning, and learning how to navigate a virtual environment. The first program I worked on with several other staff members was Walk a Mile in Her Shoes®: The International Men’s March to Stop Rape, Sexual Assault & Gender Violence. It is a staple event for the Women’s Center, and it had to be significantly modified to accommodate COVID-19 safety protocols. For example, we rebranded the walk as a socially-distanced, contemplative walk instead of a march. However, with ample planning, teamwork, and many enthusiastic co-sponsors and volunteers we were able to put on a successful event that engaged students on-campus and/or virtually. After a brief break, I started working on an event called Grow Your Resilience. This event was aimed to help participants acknowledge and increase their resilience. Resilience is known as the capacity to recover from difficulties. I was very excited to work on this event and extremely grateful for the donation of mums we acquired from Suburban Lawn & Garden with the help of April Brown. Indeed, we have all confronted a need for flexibility this year, and I was not exempt from that. The day before the event, the location needed to be changed from the Women’s Center to another spot on campus. I was very thankful for the Director of the Student Union Jody Jeffries for accommodating us in moving the event to Jazzman’s Stage. We had great turnout for Grow Your Resilience and we gave away all our supplies for the program on the first day! I worked on a couple projects after Walk A Mile and Grow Your Resilience, but I was most involved in those two. I am so happy to have learned so much from my supervisors, Arzie Umali and Brenda Bethman. I could not be more pleased with my fall semester at the Women’s Center. I look forward to engaging students in our spring activities!