Dean of Student Life Holly Sateia and seven Dartmouth students will lead seminars and serve as mentors in the first Young Women's Invitational Leadership Conference to be held Sept. 1 to 3 at The Ethel Walker School in Simsbury, Conn.
The program is a collaborative effort between Sateia and the College's former Dean of Freshmen Margaret Bonz, who is currently headmistress of the Walker School.
The conference is designed to contribute to the education, growth, and development of young women leaders, aged 16 to 17, from 10 participating young women's preparatory schools.
The two-and-a-half day conference will feature speakers, workshops, case studies and group exercises, m any of which will be led by the Dartmouth students.
Leadership Program Intern Sheryl Jacobson '96 said the program is "going to be incredibly busy, the breaks are few and far between."
Within this limited time frame, the conference is designed to open avenues of opportunity to its young delegates. "Recent studies have shown that young women between the ages of eleven and sixteen lose, rather than gain confidence," Sateia said.
"What this program attempts to do is encourage, inspire and support young women to take on leadership roles within their communities, and to begin to identify and appreciate the particular skills and abilities of women leaders," Sateia said.
The conference will feature seminars that teach practical skills that the delegates can implement immediately in their leadership roles at their preparatory schools. The program will also give participants a chance to interact with several under-30-year-old role models, including young alumnae of the participating prep schools as well as the Dartmouth delegates.
"I think that at this age people are hesitant to take leadership positions," Jacobson said. "We want to show them that once you know yourself, you can go ahead and become active" in these roles.
The older delegates will engage in mentoring activities to demonstrate the possibilities that are available, but not always evident to young women.
Dartmouth volunteers at the convention will include sophomores Sunni Chauhan, Molly Emott, Elissa Germaine, Marybeth Jordan, Hayley Spizz, and Ann Marshall '95.
"I think this is something we all wish we had -- access to the leadership tools to help us do more than muddle, unprepared, through the leadership opportunities [we] have pursued," Jacobsen said.
The seminars, which include topics like communications skills and self-empowerment will be supplemented by activities like a ropes course to test abilities in group situations.
Spizz and Germaine, two delegates from the Dartmouth Community Mediation Center, will teach conflict resolution skills to the students.
Delegates will come prepared to address a problem they encounter in their particular school, and will work with student coordinators to develop strategies for resolving these problems in the coming year.
Follow-up inquires to be conducted next year will assess the effectiveness of the program and the abilities of its participants.
Sateia, who organized the Leadership Discovery Program at the College, hopes to create a "how-to" manual to help other organizations initiate leadership programs.
The funding for the program, a grant from the Patrina Foundation, is being shared with Sateia's other leadership programs for high school students in the Hanover area. Sateia also plans to create a mentorship program between female faculty members and campus leaders next year.
