Faculty from the School of Business, School of Communications and College of Arts & Sciences held the second annual Women and Sports Symposium Tuesday, March 31, featuring speakers in the SITE Auditorium full of local high school students.
Held during the common hour, the event welcomed speakers such as Quinnipiac University President Marie Hardin and keynote speaker Batouly Camara, a former UConn basketball player and founder of a global nonprofit Women and Kids Empowerment.
Before the event started, audience members could enjoy the beats of a DJ and enjoy free refreshments in the form of sodas and pizza.
Hardin opened the symposium by highlighting all the success Quinnipiac women’s teams have achieved in the past month, including the women’s ice hockey’s ECAC Championship, women’s basketball regular season championship, as well as the events of March Madness and the increase of WNBA players’ salaries that they fought hard for.
“What an outstanding time to be talking about the rise of women’s sports,” Hardin said. “It’s always wonderful to celebrate the victories for women’s sports and thank you to each and every one of you who are here.”
After Hardin, Sarah Fraser, Quinnipiac’s deputy director of athletics, introduced a video of all the female student-athletes at Quinnipiac, made up of photos from their season to the sounds of “Unstoppable” by Sia.
“Influence is not limited to a title or position,” Fraser said. “We all have influence and it’s about how we use our platforms to elevate others and to open doors and to challenge the ways things have always been done. So today’s theme, reclaiming our time, really resonated with me. It means recognizing the value of women’s contributions. Thank you for investing your time in this topic.”
Even though the high schoolers cleared out the room due to some scheduling mishaps, a few people including some student-athletes stayed for the following panel that featured Camara, Quinnipiac volleyball head coach Kyle Robinson, Visiting Professor of Sports Communications Patricia Mays, Sports Marketing Researcher Ceyda Mumcu and UMass Amherst Assistant Professor AJ Keegan.
Led by Camara, the panel participants answered questions regarding their own experiences as women in sports, or leading the women in sports in Robinson’s case.
One big topic focused on how social media shapes the world of sports and whether or not it is beneficial for athletes to partake in it.
“For athletes to be able to have access and for them to be able to see people that look like them in these spaces is huge,” Robinson said. “It allows them to tell their story and be themselves.”
What Robinson and Mumcu said, as people dealing with a lot of international athletes, is that social media allows everyone to stay connected and get opportunities they wouldn’t have in the pre-social media era.
The panel concluded with a question about one hard and one soft skill that the panelists found valuable. Even though some had it as hard and some as soft, the topic of communication came up multiple times.
“Do you have speaking, oral and written communication skills?” Mays said. “People are looking for students or interns who can actually answer the phone these days. It is so very important, if you can get across and carry a conversation.”
The second annual symposium concluded with Camara reflecting on their answers and thanking the remaining students in the audience for listening.
