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.