HU Promotes Women in Office with 'Elect Her-Campus' Initiative

Young women gathered in the Bethune Annex Seminar Room on Saturday, Jan. 21 to learn how to run an effective campaign through the Elect Her-Campus Women Win in 2012 Initiative. The event was geared toward women who are running for student government positions on campus. 

The Elect Her-Campus Women Win is an initiative to encourage more women to run for elected offices in student government on their campuses. Sophomore legal communications major Kristin Tellis is the Elect Her coordinator at Howard this year, and along with Norkia Baker, associate director for student leadership, development and community service in the Office of Student Life and Activities, she applied for Howard to host the program. The American Association of Undergraduate Women approved the request making Howard the first HBCU to be included in the initiative.

"I found out about Elect Her last summer when I was doing research to help change the disparity in how women are involved in student government on Howard's campus," Tellis said. "I applied for Howard to be a site, Ms. Baker helped me out and they contacted us to let us know we would be hosting the training."

At the event, about 30 young women showed up to learn how to run an effective campaign. 

"If they weren't thinking of running before, their fears and concerns have been addressed, and it won't keep them from running," Tellis said. 

Baker also enjoyed the event. 

"The event was absolutely fabulous. People stayed for the entire day for an education session on women in leadership," Baker said.  "It was a great day for women to get involved. We definitely want to have more events like this."

The program hosted a panel of women from both Howard and the surrounding area who are elected officials. The panelists from Howard included Andrea Armstead, executive president of the PURPOSE School of Business undergraduate student council, Mallory Lambert, executive president for the College of Engineering, Architecture, and Computer Science, and Erin Keith, the undergraduate student assembly coordinator. 

At the beginning of the program, there was a short presentation by Julie Daniels, political programs director for the women's campaign forum, who shared the statistics about women in elected offices around the United States. 

Only 17 percent of U.S. Representatives and 23 percent of state legislators in this country are women, and the U.S. ranks 73rd internationally with regards to women in the federal government. Howard University's statistics fared far better than the national average as 52 percent of elected officials are women but women hold only 25 percent of executive leadership positions.