April 12, 2007

Daughters come to work April 24

For the 13th consecutive year, Northwestern will participate in “Take Our Daughters to Work Day” April 26. The program offers girls an opportunity to witness women participating in a wide variety of career and occupational endeavors.

Last year 263 girls, aged 9 to 16, participated in Northwestern’s observance of the Ms. Foundation-sponsored event. About 300 girls are expected to attend the 2007 events.

This year the emphasis will focus on science, math, technology and computer science and the related career options open to women in these fields.

To help make the event a success, the planning committee urgently needs volunteers on both campuses.

Chaperones are needed on the Evanston campus from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Also needed are volunteers to handle registration from 8 to 9:30 a.m. To volunteer, contact Njoki Kamau at (847) 491-2734 or ngk@northwestern.edu. Volunteers may phone Kamau as late as 5 p.m. April 25.

The Chicago campus also needs volunteers that day. To volunteer contact Elisabeth Lindsay-Ryan at e-lindsay@northwestern.edu.

Participants can choose from 15 tour tracks in Evanston and seven tour tracks in Chicago.

The creation of “Take Our Daughters to Work Day” was intended to help girls focus on what they can accomplish rather than on how they look. Witnessing women in a variety of professional roles can help girls develop self-confidence in academic and career pursuits.

Staff and faculty members who would like to sponsor a daughter, granddaughter, niece, or a young neighbor or friend must complete a registration form for either the Chicago or Evanston campus.

A postcard notifying staff and faculty that registration has begun will be sent via campus mail and direct staff and faculty members to the Women’s Center Web site. For detailed information about this year’s scheduled tour tracks for both campuses and/or registration forms for the event, go to www.northwestern.edu/womencenter/.

The registration deadline is April 19 on the Chicago campus and April 20 on the Evanston campus. A fee of $10 per person in the form of a personal check or money order should be made payable to Northwestern. Late registrants must add an extra $5.

This year’s lunchtime keynote speaker on the Evanston campus will be Debra DaRosa, Ph.D., professor of surgery-gastrointestinal and endocrine and vice chair of education for the Feinberg School of Medicine, department of surgery.

The Chicago campus lunchtime keynote speaker will be Mardge Cohen, M.D., director of women’s HIV research at the Ruth M. Rothstein CORE Center in Chicago, and medical director of WE-ACTx, an international community-based initiative that provides HIV care to women and families in east-central Africa’s Republic of Rwanda.

For more information, contact Renee Redd on the Evanston campus at (847) 491-2733 or (847) 491-7360 or r-redd@northwestern.edu or Elisabeth Lindsay-Ryan on the Chicago campus at (312) 503-3401 or (312) 503-3400 or e-lindsay@northwestern.edu.