BY CASSIDEY KAVATHAS, NEWS EDITOR
Bonaventure’s Jandoli School of Communications has welcomed a new club this year called Women in Communications. The idea started when Anna Bulszewicz, an associate professor at the Jandoli School, noticed that there were more men than women in her classes and that the women in her classes tended to participate less.
“As a woman in communication and a woman in the communication industry, I want to empower our existing communication majors in a way that they may not be empowered or nourished in the classroom because of this enrollment disparity,” said Bulszewicz.
The Jandoli school has 159 students enrolled with only 48 being female.
“I want a space for the women to be able to learn more about their professional futures, to be able to freely discuss challenges and victories,” said Bulszewicz. “I want this club to be the space where we go to dream and breed excellence for the future of communication.”
Bulszewicz worked with Jah’neyce Washington, a sophomore broadcast journalism major; and Nina Van Volkenburg, a freshman strategic communications major, to bring this idea to life. Washington and Van Volkenburg, along with other members, help generate discussion topics for meetings.
“Communications is mainly male dominated and some things you can’t say around boys,” said Washington. “The club gives a safe space for opinions and helps women feel more comfortable.”
Earlier in the semester, the club spoke about body positivity issues and women in business. The club also met with board of trustee member Carol Schumacher to discuss her professional career.
“Carol offered insight that will be useful for the young women going forward,” said Bulszewicz.
Moving into the spring semester, the group of young women hope to do even more.
“We want to introduce and host a robust speaker series, and to also create more engagement by structuring the meetings around hot button issues and discussion points coming directly from the women in the organization,” said Bulszewicz.
After the success of their first events, the women in communication are already thinking of the future.
“The goal is to empower women but I’d like to have more speakers come in like Carol Schumacher and really see real life examples of what women can do in business and how successful they can be,” said Van Volkenburg. “Sitting around and talking is good. But we want to use the things we learn in this club to go out into the real world and succeed.”
kavathcj20@bonaventure.edu
