Hello all,
Getting ready for this year's meetings and job interviews... keeping it light for a change!
Sidney Morss on Instagram and YouTube
And...please consider connecting with 2 fabulous groups supporting women in tech. These groups schedule regular webinars and provide resources, with no membership requirements:
All the best,
Holly
Hello all,
How do you like to learn? As we all get ready for the new academic year to take flight, let's consider our own learning opportunities. Conferences, courses, library and personal collections of books and articles, SUNY group webinars, and SUNY college events all provide opportunities that we can take advantage of within our usual workdays. Then there is the fabulous podcast! If you haven't discovered them yet, give them a try. There is a podcast for everything, from silly or serious to musical or magical!
And for women in tech, these three are recommended by the builtin.com women in tech community:
The Women in Tech Podcast is a talk show for women engineers, designers, founders, and more from the tech industry to share their career experiences and how they got to where they are now. The podcast airs one to two episodes each week and is hosted by WeAreLATech founder Espree Devora.
Girlboss Radio routinely serves up inspiring, insightful, and entertaining podcasts that feature women from all different backgrounds discussing subjects that are important to them. On any given episode, you might hear how an entrepreneur built their billion-dollar business, how an actor is working on a passion project that is important to them, or how you can become a better version of yourself.
The Harvard Business Review’s Women at Work podcast discusses pressing issues for women in the workplace in an in-depth and thoughtful manner, covering topics such as working in a male-dominated industry, how to make yourself a leader in your company, and even how to build a feeling of “sisterhood” in your personal and professional life.
Specific to librarians, try this one: The Cyber Punk Librarian podcast "explores new technology and tools that research librarians can use. Creators of the podcast understand that research librarians may not have a huge technology budget. The focus of their podcast is on affordable and free tools including reviews on browser extensions, apps, and more."
Hope this list gets you started on a new learning adventure! And, please post your own favorite podcasts to the list so we can build up our strengths together.
All the best,
Holly
Hello all,
I hope you had the chance to see some of the Olympics. The competitions, the athleticism, the beauty of Paris, the heartbreak of missing a win by fractions of a second...much of the triumph and tribulations of the human experience is wrapped up in those games. And also, sadly—sexism, gender disparities, and our other fears and prejudices show up on occasion.
As much as I love competition, I value higher education in SUNY for something else—yes, we compete for scholarship funding, student enrollment, research grants, and in sports...and yes, our students compete in their classes for grades and club positions and for places on teams. Nonetheless, our mission is to strive towards excellence for all. To raise the achievement bar for all. We work in an environment that can encourage collaboration and support, so that as many people as possible can make their dreams come true.
For many years, the limited access women were allowed at the table created a false competition that was encouraged by those in power. Even though we knew that the limitations were created and not real, we were trapped inside them. Women stepped on each other in a race to the one leadership seat and the one available promotion. Even when some women gained a seat at the table, we are often still stuck in the frame that there aren't enough seats...we still have to compete, and we can't take time to help someone else because we need to make gains for ourselves.
That can change, and we need to keep making the tables larger.
Competition is one way to push towards excellence. It's built on a scarcity model where there are winners and losers. Cooperation and collaboration is another. It's built on an abundance model, where there is enough for more, and we win together.
For more on the abundance mindset: Karim Benammar: We need to shift to an abundance mindset to solve global problems.
All the best,
Holly
Hello all,
Before the fall semester starts and things get too busy, I want to acknowledge the upcoming US Presidential elections with some information about women's participation and roles. I got curious about the role of women in U.S. politics, and thought it would be worth sharing some of what I found.
American women won the right to vote in NY in 1917, and the nation finally ratified the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920. You can read more in the primary documents describing the long efforts needed to make this happen in the National Archives. As we work to ensure better representation and success of women in technology-related work, remember that the long fights are worthwhile!
American women turn out to vote: "Women have registered and voted at higher rates than men in every presidential election since 1980, with the turnout gap between women and men growing slightly larger with each successive presidential election." However, "In recent elections, the gender gap among the most educated citizens, those with a bachelor's or advanced degree, is nearly non-existent."
American women participate in national and state governments, but not yet in proportion to their share of the population: In 2023, women-identifying people made up 25% of the US Senate, 28.5% of the US House, 32.7% of state legislatures, 24% of state governors, and 48% of US federal cabinet-level positions, according to Pew Research reported data.
Women Trailblazers need to be remembered and appreciated. The NY Legislative Library celebrated women trailblazers last March, and many other websites offer their top trailblazers, like these examples: 6 Influential Political Female Trailblazers You Should Know About and Women’s History Month: Honoring the Many “Firsts” of African American Female Ambassadors.
We also must remember and appreciate that our democracy was influenced by the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, as described by the Library of Congress blog The Haudenosaunee Confederacy and the Constitution and by the Haudenosaunee Confederacy on their official website Influence on Democracy.
Each SUNY campus will likely have programming and student activities around the elections, and our communities will be filled with events as well. I encourage everyone to get involved, stay informed, and stay together!
In the words of Martin Luther King Jr, "We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now."
All the best,
Holly
