International Women’s Day: Celebrating Western Women

By Maria Manthos

The WSU Bankstown Campus Early Career Academic /Mid Career Academic Advisory Group hosted the ‘Celebrating Western Women’ event on the 8th March and invited the women 21C SAPs along to it so that our work could be celebrated with other women in the University.

As a woman, being surrounded by other great women on International Women's Day, was a truly empowering experience" - Chinnu Jose, 21C SAP.

I was so amazed that others around the university wanted to celebrate the work of STUDENTS. Vanessa, Chinnu and I made up a ‘roundtable’ facilitated by Dr Jenny Pizzica where we spoke about how the work we have been doing together (like the Future of Work Forums, Curriculum Makerspaces and our Research) has made us much more than ‘students’ who 'rock up' to classes. We explained how being a SAP has opened up spaces within the University that we never knew existed, let alone, could ever participate in. The whole day reminded me of Gina Hunter's article 'Students Study Up the University' which I read as part of the Summer Scholarship project this year.

Hunter argues that there is a link between student engagement with the University and greater citizenship outside the university (p. 20). This is how I felt today; that I was part of something outside of the classroom - a space nurtured by academics - which gave me the chance to contribute and celebrate global events like International Women's Day, a community that I was very much a part of but just didn't know it yet.

References: Hunter, G. (2012). Students Study Up the University: Perspectives Gained in Student Research on the University as Institution. Pedagogy, 12(1), 19-43.