Lou CortinaThe UMBrella Group reached for the stars and mixed in a little candlelight in its highlight event of 2019, turning the annual Women’s History Month celebration into a daylong symposium.
“Be a Catalyst for Change in Your Life and Your Career” featured Chesapeake Bay Candle founder Mei Xu, MA, and Catholic University of America professor Duilia de Mello, PhD, MS, who talked about their experiences as an entrepreneur and an astronomer, respectively. UMB faculty members and other experts spoke in breakout sessions about topics such as storytelling, negotiating, and recognizing implicit bias to 150 attendees.
It was the biggest and best event so far for UMBrella (UMB Roundtable on Empowerment in Leadership and Leveraging Aspirations), which was formed in 2014.
“These annual celebrations are really a reminder of all of the progress made thus far toward gender equity,” said UMBrella founder and chair Jennifer B. Litchman, MA, senior vice president for external relations and special assistant to the president.
UMBrella works to support the success of women at UMB, advancing them into leadership roles and championing women at all levels of the organization. In that vein, for the fourth year in a row, it sponsored two students to attend the National Conference for College Women Student Leaders, a four-day leadership gathering that attracts 800 women from across the world to the University of Maryland, College Park.
The UMBrella Group also launched UMBPACE (Professional Administratives Committed to Excellence), an affinity group dedicated to empowering the University’s administrative professionals by mentoring, teaching, encouraging, and identifying paths to excellence.
