Academia creates an environment for world-class leaders to grow, and Women in Leadership, a club at the University of Calgary, is in the process of creating a video to showcase the diverse range of women on campus that are an inspiration to students.
WIL aims to empower women at the U of C through collaborative projects and a platform for discussion. The club was started in the 2011–12 school year.
Students’ Union vice-president academic Kenya-Jade Pinto come up with the idea for the video with WIL vice-president communications and U of C student Emma Popoola in the 2011–12 school year. The production of the video has just begun.
According to Pinto, diversity will be an important factor in the video. It will be under five minutes and will debut in late March.
“Women in Leadership has decided to create a video of diverse stories of women on our campus,” said Pinto. “We’re looking for narratives from women on campus of all different backgrounds and we’re casting that really wide.”
The video will include stories from both men and women. Pinto said the stories must speak about women who have been an inspiration.
“We are taking stories that pertain to women in leadership. What woman inspires you? What does it mean to be a woman in leadership? Why do students feel it is important to have a Women in Leadership club on campus?” said Pinto.
Currently, only the first few interviews have been conducted.
“We really want to dig into each little pocket of the university campus to get these voices,” said Pinto. “This video is meant to show that women in leadership come from all different walks of life.”
According to fifth-year international relations student and president of WIL Stephenie Healey, this video will help empower women on campus.
“This project was originally intended to promote the club and celebrate the things it has accomplished in its first two years of existence,” said Healey. “We are now focused on crafting a video that is simply an extension of our mandate: to engage a diverse group of women to inspire them to take on leadership roles, and to be a forum for them to share and discover what being a woman in leadership means to them.”
She hopes that roughly 30 or more individuals will participate in the video.
“It’s not going to be like a docu-drama or anything. It will be a short and sweet, inspiring video from hopefully a lot of different people,” said Healey. “We want to get a very diverse group of individuals with varying passions and degree backgrounds.”
Upon completion, the video will be displayed on the Loop throughout the MacEwan Student Centre.