It has been a very busy start to the school year for organizations from planning interest meetings, to creating a yearly calendar and agenda, or collecting dues.
Amongst the many organizations on campus are Ladies of Excellence, 100 Collegiate Women, and Bombshells in Business that plan to have their interest meetings in the next coming weeks.
All three of these organizations target one thing: women’s empowerment. There has been a lot of speculation about whether the three organizations are in competition with one another, leaving many students to question the differences between the three.
Ladies of Excellence was founded on N.C. A&T’s campus in 2001 by a group of women who were interested in gathering women to help them be the best they can be professionally. L.O.E.’s mission is to promote business etiquette and professionalism among college women.
“We are here to help provide the tools to be as well-rounded as possible in a professional manner,” said Jasmine Davis, president of L.O.E. “We do a lot of career building workshops. We do resume workshops, interviewing skills, anything that is necessary to help women succeed when it comes to getting a job, keeping a job, and how to perform successfully. We are also here to try to break those stereotypes that women think when it comes to the business world or whatever field they decide they want to be in. We really want to show them that they have the tools and have the power to be as successful as anybody else,” said Davis.
“We talk about all of the professional stuff, but we want to talk about what’s going on personally with women too,” Davis said. Whatever we think is important to women and developing as a woman, we will discuss it no matter what,” she said.
Founded in the 2013-14 academic school year, Bombshells in Business is an organization to equip women with the necessary skills and experience to step into their dream careers and cultivates creativity, innovation, and professionalism in a fresh and modern way. Bombshells advocates for professionalism and presenting its members with internship opportunities to get them ready and make them more competitive when they step out into the global career market.
“We advocate for entrepreneurship, ownership, and career readiness, but we’ve updated it,” said Shelby Christie, founder and president of Bombshells.
“Older organizations and more traditional professional organizations will do things like dinner etiquette, how to have dinner with your bosses and things like that. We’ve updated that to social media etiquette and how to interact with other professionals on social media sites in order to represent your brand and your business the best way.”
The mission of Bombshells on campus is to encourage women empowerment and sisterhood.
“Sometimes professional women’s orgs are too professional,” said Christie. “There’s not really a focus on bonding andsisterhood so we want to kind of want to be that middle ground where we can be good friends, we can be sisters, and then we can also get this work together,” she said.
Bombshells places an emphasis on professionalism and the way the brand is presented.
“We don’t think of ourselves as an organization, we think of ourselves as a brand,” Christie said. One of the clear differences is visuals and the thought that goes into how we promote and brand our org. Our shirts never say Bombshells in Business. It’s always something relevant, m
students. It always something that connects with our audience.”
100 Collegiate Women is a women’s organization on campus that promotes general women’s education and empowerment. 100 Collegiate women focuses on all aspects of womanhood. They focus on etiquette, business, and different things that effect women on a day to day basis.
“While everyone is in preparation and trying to join all of these orgs and trying to come out, essentially, there are still day to day things that need to be handled,” said Oni Crawford, president of 100 Collegiate Women. “Girls need to know that they have someone they can talk to and they also need to know that they are resources on this campus that go further than Sebastian or Murphy.”
In regards to 100 Collegiate Women, the National Coalition of 100 Black Women does not charter collegiate chapters.
“Reaching out to them was extremely difficult,” Crawford said. “Trying to get that affiliation was, to be completely honest, not beneficial. It is really sticky and it is really complicated, but the “black” was not necessarily taken out on purpose. We are an HBCU, so clearly our girls are majority black; but we still want the other demographics on campus to still feel as welcome as possible.”
L.O.E. and 100 Collegiate women plan to work together a lot this year.
“We did a couple programs with them last year, but myself and their president, Oni Crawford, we are really committed to kind of merging the two,” Davis said. “We are going to be doing a lot of interesting programs. We’ll still be separate entities. Ladies of Excellence will always still exist and 100 Collegiate Women will still exist. We want to remain true to who we are and always promote business etiquette and professionalism.”
Bombshells also plan to collaborate with 100 Collegiate Women.
L.O.E. plans to reach out to elementary and middle schools in the local Greensboro area in order to facilitate a program where they can go to schools and talk to the girls about their personal development and about girl issues.
“We’ve all been there before and we all know what it’s like to be a young girl,” Davis said. L.O.E. wishes to partner and form a meaningful relationship with those schools.
Although there is friendly competition between the orgs, all of the presidents are very familiar and support one another.
“We want to show women that there’s really not a divide between our overall, but we want to make women as wonderful as they can possibly be,” Davis said. “We want to do a lot of programs together so that way we can show them that we can unite with women that are in different areas of business, that do different things, that are different classifications and really show them that it’s possible.”
“There is a friendly competition there, but it’s not a ‘let’s chop down each other competition,’ Christie said. “Anything for women, I’m for.”
Whether you join one of these organizations or others, be sure to get involved this semester!
— Email Mija at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @heelson_check
- Mija Gary Register Reporter