Females Celebrated at SIUE East St. Louis Charter High School’s Women’s Conference

Women – in all of their glory, complexities and struggles – were lauded and discussed during the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville East St. Louis Charter High School’s (CHS) mini-conference, held Friday, March 29. 

“We wanted to both celebrate and bring attention to the issues that have affected women in history and those that are still affecting them today,” said Bridget Nelson, CHS English faculty associate and conference coordinator. “Although women as a group have come closer to equality, we are still not there.” 

Conference topics and presenters included:

• Healthy Relationships: SIUE alumna Destiny Green, prevention educator and girl’s group facilitator at Safe Connections in St. Louis, talked about the many layers that can make consent difficult for teens to navigate
• Beauty Standards and Hair: Janaia Glover and Alyssa Cline, graduate students in SIUE’s social work program, discussed how beauty standards can be problematic, especially when comparing black and white women
• Women in STEM: Candice Johnson, academic coordinator for the SIUE Center for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Research, Education and Outreach, conducted a hands-on activity that taught about historic women who made and are making “her story” in STEM 

CHS students also participated in the following activities during the conference:

• Watching the film, “Girl Rising,” which followed nine girls from Haiti, Nepal, Ethiopia, India, Egypt, Peru, Cambodia, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan on their journey to education
• A poetry session entitled “Her Story, Her Voice,” where students wrote a poem in first-person and n the voice of historic women
• A women’s history jeopardy tournament, with categories that centered around women and included activists, authors, events, music, film and television
• An art portrait project, where students created portraits of influential, historic women in the style of noted American artist Amy Sherald

“For this conference, intersectionality was an important area of focus,” said Nelson. “Many of our sessions focused on black women and other women of color, who are further away from equality than their white counterparts.” 

“The session on healthy relationships was a discussion about respect and the values that should be in a relationship,” said freshman Sydney Williams. “It was a good conversation to have.” 

“The Women in STEM session was awesome, because I learned how to use robots and about minority women in STEM who did great things,” said senior Jaylen Jenkins. 

The SIUE Charter High School is a school-of-choice for families in the East St. Louis School District 189. The mission of the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville East St. Louis Charter High School is to prepare students who are career- and college-ready upon graduation. To achieve this mission, the school and its staff will positively impact the educational and economic lives of East St. Louis, Illinois youth through individualized instruction in core academic subjects, exploration of career interests and aptitudes, assistance in realizing students’ talents, high academic goals, and expectations that graduates will become competitive employees for the 21st century.  

Photos:
Janaia Glover, graduate student in SIUE’s social work program, talks to CHS students about standards of beauty and hair. 

L-R: CHS junior Makyla Green tries her hand at creating a portrait in the style of noted artist Amy Sherald, as Hope Jordan, CHS art faculty associate, looks on.  

CHS student Taylor Brown operates a robot during her school's Women's Conference.