Women’s History Month at Ferris is a time to celebrate the women who lead by example and help make registered student organizations (RSOs) run on campus.
The month of March is Women’s History Month, and while our society has made great strides toward gender equality, which is reflected in many ways at Ferris, there is still work that needs to be done in recognizing women leaders and their contributions.
“First of all, I think Ferris should recognize Women’s History Month a little more than it does,” said Ferris applied speech communication junior and president of Active Minds Victoria Hudgins. “You see things, and you hear things and sometimes they have events. Maybe coming from a woman’s perspective, there should be something bigger.”
Ferris criminal justice senior and vice president of You Beautiful Black Woman Jazmine Goode and Ferris business administration junior and president of Alpha Kappa Psi co-ed business fraternity Sarah Bryant expressed the same sentiments about Ferris organizations needing to be more cognizant of Women’s History Month. Both think Ferris students from all organizations should become involved in planning events and making the month stand out more on campus.
“We can make it better,” said Goode. “If all of the women’s organizations on campus came together and we did one big thing and helped shine a light on Women’s History Month, I think it could be a lot better. That might be a big or fun event if all of us came together to bring awareness to it.”
Though Ferris and RSOs on campus generally do their best to push for equality in programs and rights for women on campus, there are still examples of sexism that happen inside of programs.
“I was originally a television and digital media production (TDMP) major, and then I was in sports communication, and now I’m in applied speech,” said Hudgins. “Originally I wanted to do video, and then I lost my love for it and I didn’t want to do it anymore. And I loved sports, so then I went into sports. I got that being a girl in sports communication was hard because you get looked at differently, you get judged. I wanted to be on the broadcasting side, and there were several times where I was told, ‘You can’t be a broadcaster, you’re a girl.’”
Women In Technology (WIT) president and Ferris business administration and mechanical engineering technology senior Quincee Denault represents a RSO that works to promote science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) studies to women interested in entering these fields.
“I think it’s definitely progressing because what we’re doing here at Ferris is happening at a lot of other places,” said Denault. “Where if we’re already a woman in a STEM field, we’re trying to really encourage other women to consider if that’s something they’re genuinely interested in, are skilled in and can move forward with that. Because I think so many people really thought that, or they grew up thinking that nursing is a really important thing for females to do and it’s a very traditional view. I think that now that people are really starting to stand out and really follow their true interests, it’s really starting to spark more interest in other fields.”