SOUTH HADLEY and NORTHAMPTON, Mass. -- Meeting
in Bellagio, Italy, at the end of August, leaders of 15 women’s
colleges from around the world mapped out a strategy for ongoing
collaboration to increase access to high quality educational opportunities
for girls and women.
“When women are educated, all of society
benefits—whether in terms of economic productivity, public
health, or an engaged citizenry,” said Mount Holyoke College
President Joanne V. Creighton, co-founder of the group Women’s
Education Worldwide (WEW).
Among the areas of collaboration committed to by
WEW representatives during the four-day summit were faculty, student
and staff exchanges, data sharing, and the development of an internationalized
curriculum touching on subjects of cross-cultural importance, including
women in politics and environmental issues.
“This level of cooperation among so many
disparate institutions may be rare in higher education but it speaks
volumes about the growing need to advance opportunities for women
everywhere, regardless of cultural, economic, religious, or historical
contexts,” said Smith College President Carol T. Christ, WEW’s
other co-founder. “Educating women for leadership and influence
holds tremendous potential for the advancement of a global economy
and civil society.”
WEW’s members, now about 50, include colleges
and universities from five continents, large and small, wealthy
and poor, public and private, well-established and new. “We
are making great strides in harnessing the collective energy of
women’s institutions around the world to open new opportunities
for educational advancement and social change," said Hoon Eng
Khoo, recently named vice president of academic planning for the
Asian University for Women, which will open its doors in Bangladesh
with the pre-matriculation Access Program in 2008 and the undergraduate
program in 2009. Khoo is a Smith College graduate and credits her
women’s college education in the U.S. as an inspiration for
her work on behalf of women’s education in Asia.
Women’s Education Worldwide is an alliance
of institutions of higher education committed to advancing the cause
of educating women around the globe. The initiative was founded
in 2003 by Mount Holyoke and Smith, two of the original “Seven
Sisters” of U.S. higher education, a group that itself has
long benefited from collaboration at the national level. The meeting
was held at the Rockefeller Foundation’s study and conference
center.
In addition to the two founding colleges, Women’s
Education Worldwide institutions represented at the Bellagio summit
included Asian University for Women (Bangladesh), Collegio Nuovo
(Italy), Dubai Women’s College (United Arab Emirates), Effat
College (Saudi Arabia), Kiriri Women’s University of Science
& Technology (Kenya), Kobe College (Japan), Lady Shri Ram College
(India), Shaheed Rajguru College of Applied Sciences (India), Philippine
Women’s University (Philippines), Punjab University (Pakistan),
Royal University for Women (Bahrain), Spelman College (United States),
and the Women’s College of the University of Queensland (Australia).
Also in attendance was Susan Lennon, Director of the Women’s
College Coalition (US/Canada).
Smith and Mount Holyoke will hold an international
leadership conference for women undergraduates in the summer of
2008. Presidents and academic deans of WEW institutions convene
biannually on a different member campus. The 2006 meeting was held
in Dubai, and the 2008 meeting will be in Pavia, Italy.
On a related front, the North American Women's
College Coalition has invited women's institutions from abroad to
attend its meeting in Washington, D.C. this October.
