Women’s Leadership Conference comes to FPU

photo: www.nhwhel.org

by  Jeffrey Payne
edited by Nalina Shapiro

One hundred and thirteen female college professors and administrators from all over the state of New Hampshire gathered together at Franklin Pierce last Friday for the New Hampshire Women in Higher Education Leadership Spring Conference.

The day-long event kicked off in Pierce Hall at 9:30 a.m. with a welcoming ceremony. Three speakers, including Franklin Pierce’s provost Kim Mooney, spoke about the conference and its subject, leadership in regards to technology with a concentration on social networking sites. Mooney stated in her opening remarks that with this conference she hoped that they could “create multi-generational classrooms.”

The conference then broke into a group of sessions all discussing social media in regards to different educational concentrations such as, academic, policies, and administration. Each session was run by a professional with expertise in the particular subject as well as student mentors from Franklin Pierce.

One of the student mentors, senior Katie Wilcock, said “I assisted Leslie Poston with getting ready for her presentation ‘Using Adaptive Tools to Find Fundraising Dollars.’ I was also a social media mentor. I answered any questions people had about Twitter, Facebook, etc, and helped people create accounts and learn how to use these tools.”

Even Franklin Pierce professors got the chance to attend the breakout sessions. “I participated in a session on Twitter. It was eye opening. The speaker is the author of  Twitter For Dummies, and she is in touch with more than 6000 people, and tweets 75 + times a day. I did learn how very hooked into technology my students are, my own children are, and I realize I must keep up.” said English Professor Donna Decker

The conference also included two other large events, a keynote luncheon and a panel on communicating in a multigenerational workplace.

The conference ended up coming to FPU through an idea from Decker and History Professor Mary Kelly. After attending the conference at Plymouth State University last spring they decided it would be a good idea to bring the conference to Franklin Pierce. “There was a place on the evaluation form to indicate willingness to host a conference on your campus. I said, why not? It has taken months of planning, researching, phone calls, emails, meetings, and serious focus to bring off a successful NHWHEL conference on our campus. Lot of FPU folks worked their very best to bring this to fruition,” said Decker.

The process of preparing for the event began last semester and included everything from reserving rooms and equipment to finding speakers with expertise in the areas of technology covered in the conference.  “Heidi Pettigrew and Professor Decker approached me to design the conference program and name tags,” said senior Heather Modjesky. The conference closed at 3:45 p.m. and left the attendees to network in Pierce Hall after the closing panel.

Decker commented on the success of the event. “I listened to exuberant attendees maintain that the conference met and surpassed their expectations. I am pleased.”