Women of Athens will come together to empower one another for the first Athens Area Women’s Summit.
The event will take place Friday at the Ohio University Inn on 331 Richland Ave. and tickets will cost $75. Breakfast will start at 8:30 a.m. and the event will carry on throughout the entire day.
There will be many speakers, including Kris Cornwell of Cornwell Jewelers, Nicole J. Phillips, author of “Kindness is Contagious,” Cheryl Herbert, senior vice president of regional operations for OhioHealth, as well as many others.
Some of the topics the speakers will discuss include how gender stereotypes threaten success, entrepreneurship and personal leadership.
“I thought it was a great platform to help inspire a crowd of women,” Jennifer Murphy, assistant dean of career management and student success, said in an email. Murphy will be one of the speakers at the event for the entrepreneur roundtable.
“Events like this are important because they show women we are more than the box that society puts us in,” Kimberly Tetuan, a sophomore studying middle education, said.
The event will help show women they are capable of more, Tetuan, a student worker at the OU Women’s Center, said.
To Sydney Dawes, a senior studying journalism, events like the Athens Area Women’s Summit mean a lot when empowering women because of how they will be solely focusing on women.
“To me personally, as a journalist, I see a lot of the focus being on white men in power,” Dawes said. “We aren’t getting enough representation, especially in college.”
The events’ hosts, the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce and Career Connections, Inc., encourage everyone to attend no matter their professional level or their profession.
“Opportunities like this empower women to take the lead or to build confidence in their fields,” Murphy said in an email.
The event will help women develop their professional lives as well as personal lives, no matter how old they are.
“I’m confident that any attendee could gain insight through this summit, regardless of age,” Murphy said in an email. “There are many options and topics that will be appealing for women of any age.”
The event will join the many events such as the Women in Graduate School Conference, which is hosted by the Women’s Center, to help support and build relationships for the women of Athens.
“Having an event to grow an affinity group is always important to improve a community and culture,” Murphy said in an email.
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