Below you will find our scholar blog posts – they cover a variety of topics, from arriving in the U.S. to interning with a stellar company to post-graduation dreams.
| Influential women leaders in corporations and philanthropy have joined forces to expand skills for sponsorship and mentoring to empower the next generation of women leaders. The Bay Area Women Leaders Network recently hosted a special session to learn from innovative leaders across the globe and to build mentoring and sponsorship skills. 150 women attended the session which featured an impressive panel of women leaders exploring the actions women can take to propel other women into positions of leadership through mentoring and sponsoring. OAD executive director Barb Bylenga as well as OAD mentors attended, spoke and reinforced the importance of this |
| Jocelyn, an incoming first year at Lafayette College, was selected to be a summer student at Babson Entrepreneurial Leadership Academy during her final days in Rwanda. Below she reflects on the experience and what she learned from the innovation-focused program.Babson Entrepreneurial Leadership Academy (BELA) was very efficient. As participants, it increased our motivation and eagerness to learn, and allowed us to comprehend how to take actions in entrepreneurship. We learned to pitch an idea promptly and successfully–a sign of leadership. As the young generation in Rwanda, it is crucial that we grasp the connection between entrepreneurship and leadership—a link BELA |
| Mentor Debra’s StoryBarb asked me to be a mentor in 2011. I took a month to decide but soon realized my excitement to make a new friend and connect with another culture was greater than my concern that I didn’t have previous experience supporting a scholar navigating the college application process.Charlotte and I began corresponding that fall. While the process of applying to schools was busier than anticipated, the depth of the connection we felt was a complete joy! Barb is an excellent ‘match maker’.I remember the phone call when Joshua Smith at Whitman College confirmed Charlotte had been awarded |
| This month, a handful of scholars were flown to San Francisco to participate in a world-renowned leadership and public speaking program from Stand and Deliver. Below, the young women give us insight into their feelings during the experience:Sharon“The Stand and Deliver seminar was tremendously enlightening and liberating. The team illustrated how a person’s voices can deliver affirmative perspective to a society. Thus, by using clear, and informative speeches or statements, we have a chance to construct a society that we have been craving for; raising women and other global challenges for a better future. Additionally, seeing a room full of women |
| What was your reaction when Bennington College accepted Sharon?I was overwhelmed, proud, grateful and fully freaking out. I was speechless, shaking and in shock.My husband and I were in the process of relocating from the San Francisco Bay Area to NY. It was March 21, 2012 and I was actually in New York City, on the roof of an apt building during our search for a new home. I checked my email and Nicholas (Bennington’s international admissions director) had emailed me and Barb letting us know that Sharon had been accepted with a full scholarship. We had to keep it |