After a controversial New York Times article sparked national discussion regarding young women's career goals last year, one recent Brown graduate and a current senior launched a lecture series addressing the topic. This year, they are looking to coordinate a mentoring program that will pair female seniors with female alums who are established in their respective fields.
Former Herald Sports Staff Writer Kate Klonick '06 and Sunisa Nardone '07 decided to found the lecture series, which was titled "Women in the World," toward the end of Fall 2005.
In a Nov. 29, 2005 Herald column, Nardone wrote about the Times article, which described Yale University women who were "planning on giving up careers to have children later in life." The article, which ran in September 2005, was written by Louise Story and titled "Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Paths to Motherhood."
Story wrote: "At Yale and other top colleges, women are being groomed to take their place in an ever more diverse professional elite. It is almost taken for granted that, just as they make up half the students at these institutions, they will move into leadership roles on an equal basis with their male classmates. There is just one problem with this scenario: many of these women say that is not what they want."
Klonick and Nardone, who currently serves as senior co-chair of the program, told The Herald that the article served as inspiration for the lecture series. Klonick, who preceded Nardone as senior co-chair, spent the summer writing a business plan for the mentoring program, which will launch this year. The program, also titled "Women in the World," gives female students more concrete support as they make career decisions.
"Going into senior year, we thought more guidance was needed in the transition from academia to real life," Nardone said.
Students will need to apply to participate in the mentoring program, and 50 "protégés" will be selected at random. Each protégé will ideally be paired with a female alum whose career path matches the student's interests.
Each protégé will communicate with her mentor at least six times during the year. They will meet formally during a kickoff event in October and a closing luncheon in the spring, Nardone said.
"It seemed kind of surprising that there are no networking events for women," Nardone said. "There are events for students of color, people involved in sciences ... so why not women?"
Klonick and Nardone introduced their program on campus with a November 2005 event titled "Dessert and Dialogue," which they described as a huge success. The event allowed students to talk to female faculty members about families, career choices and myths about women in the workforce.
"Close to 100 people showed up, and we even had to turn people away at the door because of fire code." Nardone said. "People stopped us in the street because they recognized us from the first event and commended us."
The program continued through last semester, bringing speakers to campus such as fashion designer Diane Von Furstenberg.
Marisa Quinn, assistant to the president, said she sees the program as an important resource for female students.
"The founders who created it had a great idea. ... Based on the popularity of things they've done, there must be a need for it at this time," Quinn said.
Klonick said she believes both mentors and protégés will benefit from the program. "I really hope that mentors get a chance to re-connect with Brown and give to girls our age," she said. "I think there is a huge disconnect between generations ... women can share their experiences and help."
Klonick continued: "Protégés can ask questions that they want answered, be it in music, fashion, (investment) banking. ... Having that confidence as you walk out the door is such an asset."
In future years, Nardone expects that the program will be able to accommodate even more protégés and mentors.
"I really want this mentoring program to become a constant and something you can look forward to as a rising senior female," she said.
