WOMEN for BW
Student, Faculty & Staff Award Recipients

The Giving Circle has two segments for annual disbursement with 75% of funds allocated to Faculty & Staff Special Projects and 25% of funds allocated as Student Academic Enrichment grants.

Dominique Altomari (Hydroponics at BW)
Dominique will use her award to supply students experiencing food insecurity with fresh, healthy food and produce fresh fruits and vegetables for Dining Services to use for student life through BW’s Students Tending Natural Gardens Club (the Garden club or STNG). With the funds from this award, she will purchase new equipment and seeds needed for vine plants. Depending on how many towers and plants are produced over a given time, some of the produce may also be donated to local shelters in and around Cleveland. Through the Hydroponics project, Dominique hopes to begin an educational program for food insecurity and sustainable agriculture so that more students are aware of how common experiencing food insecurity is and the various growing options for food.

Kayla Webb (The Show and Tell that Changed the World)
Kayla will use her award to cover the cost of her publishing contract for her first children’s book called, "The Show and Tell that Changed the World." This story features several diverse young ladies who share and embrace all that makes them beautifully different. Each finds confidence in the traits that society claims disqualifies them. By embracing what others see as a set-back, each young lady is able to live a more empowered life. Funds awarded by Women for BW will help propel Kayla into the next phase of her project including building a website and blog as a place for mothers, teachers, sisters and friends to find additional resources to empower young ladies in their own lives. She also plans to provide additional lesson plans, activities and demonstrations, discussions, and community. Finally, Kayla hopes to provide books to local schools and libraries.

Kylie Smith (Using the 'Looking Glass Self')
Kylie will use her award to conduct a research study to examine how college students internalize perceived judgement from others and cope using disordered eating behaviors. The goals for this study are to increase the research of the sociological view of disordered eating and body image issues. The Looking Glass Self has three main points. First, we imagine how we appear to others. Second, we imagine what their judgement of that appearance must be, and lastly, we develop feeling as a result of imagining others’ judgements. This concept is important to the development of disordered eating and body image issues because it gives insight to the ways that our social environment influences what we think of ourselves. 

Celia Oswitch (Domestic Experiential Learning Opportunity) 
Celia will use her award to attend and work Super Bowl LV in Tampa, Florida, one of the largest sporting events in the world, in February of 2021. She will work the event with other BW students through the Sport Management Program. Women in the sports management field are significantly outnumbered. As a Sport Management major, Celia's experience at the Super Bowl would be an excellent learning opportunity within the sports world. The experience would allow her to excel within her field and inspire other women to pursue careers in the sports industry. 

Total Award Amount for Students: $5,909.52

2020 Faculty & Staff Special Project Awards

 
Kate Ganczarz (Yellow Jacket Career Closet)
Kate will use her award to fund the Yellow Jacket Career Closet initiative to provide a space for students to access professional clothing for interviews, including items such as suit jackets, blazers, dress pants, dress shoes, blouses, dress shirts, and professional accessories. An estimated 36% of students suffer from basic needs insecurities (2018 Hope Center Report). With 92% of employers stating that appearance has an impact on a candidate’s ability to get hired, providing students with professional attire for these interviews, and other networking opportunities, is a vital resource for supporting students as it relates to their professional goals (National Association of Colleges and Employers Job Outlook). The closet will also provide leadership opportunities for students assisting in the operation of the closet, planning and executing donation drives, as well as community engagement and support opportunities.

Jason Keiber (Women in National Security (WINS) initiative)
Professor Jason Keiber will use his award to fund a Women in National Security (WINS) initiative that consists of student awards and a speaker series. Women are massively underrepresented in national security and foreign policy positions in the U.S. government and policy institutions. The purpose of WINS is to support the women studying national security and international affairs at BW, to expose them to professional women in D.C. through a speaker series, and to help establish BW as a recognized center of excellence in the study of global affairs. BW women studying national security will be responsible for putting together the speaker series. This will provide the students with leadership opportunities as well as the opportunity to explore the fantastic work that is being done by women in this area. Also, a student-led effort will lend itself to possible networking opportunities. Professor Keiber also plans to support students by offering three different financial awards for student excellence.

Hannah Schlueter (STEM Femme Startup Weekend: No Code Hackathon)
Hannah of BW’s LaunchNET will use her award to organize the “STEM Femme Startup Weekend: No Code Hackathon,” a three-day virtual event held during Spring Semester 2021. Hackathons are entrepreneurially focused programs that stimulate creativity and problem-solving skills under a time limit, which forces participants to distill their ideas into actionable solutions. The event will combine the principles of a hackathon with STEM focused challenges and mobile application development. The goals of the program are to encourage diversity, inclusion, and gender equality across campus; provide an opportunity for students of all majors to practice skills in creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship; and facilitate connections to help students develop their professional networks. Ideally, the program objectives will reflect involvement from eight teams (24-32 participants with a minimum of eight women); representation from every school at the university and engagement from an external audience, both to participate in the final showcase and for networking connections. To foster experiential learning, students will engage in several workshops on topics related to the STEM challenge and the entrepreneurial/innovative process.

Teri Seabrook (Beyond BW Fund)
Teri will use her award to provide funding for students to pay for entrance exams and application fees for postbaccalaureate programs through the Beyond BW Fund. The cost of entrance testing (GRE, GMAT, NCLEX, MCAT, LSAT, etc.), as well as application fees for graduate programs, are huge barriers that often discourage students from pursuing their goals beyond an undergraduate degree. The cost of tuition is already a large obstacle that students face when attending college, and especially graduate school, but many students do not even get to that step because of the cost of putting the application on the desk of an admissions office. This fund will be a way to reduce, and eliminate, that barrier by helping students pay for their tests and fees. Students will be able to apply for funding up to $200 to be allocated toward testing and application fees. This grant will mark the launch of the Beyond BW Fund, and it is their hope that this program will continue to grow and serve more students each year.

Dr. Rochelle Berndt, Dr. Cynthia Dieterich, Maggie Eaton, & Heather Marzenski (BW Community Learning Center)
The BW Department of Education will use their award to fund the Community Learning Center. The BW Community Learning Center will provide BW teacher candidates with additional opportunities to work individually and in small groups with children from the community. The program would benefit teacher candidates by providing them with additional instruction from faculty and authentic hands-on experience teaching. There is a great demand from families for educational services to be provided for their children in the summer since the pandemic shortened the school year for many children. Families need rich literacy experiences that BW pre-service teachers can provide. The 2020-2021 Women for BW Faculty & Staff Special Projects Grant can provide the funding to purchase instructional supplies, the technology needed for virtual education, and sanitization materials. 

Total Award Amount for Faculty & Staff: $17,728.59

Total award amount for 2020-2021: $23,638.11