Elect Her is a workshop organized by the Political Science Club that will be offered here at the University of Wyoming to promote women running for student government.
The non-partisan movement of young women leaders, Running Start, created this training program with a focus on teaching women the essential skills needed to run for student government positions on university campuses.
“There is gonna be elevator speeches and talk about how to run for an office and how to do well in front of the campaign and give kind of those skills and confidence needed to run for office,” Vice President Stephanie M. Skinner of the Political Science club said.
According to the Running Start website, “Elect Her initiative is basically a training program that encourages college women to run for student government on their college or university campuses. Research has shown that women who run for student body elections in college are more likely to run for office as adults. The training also addresses the disparity between the high percentage of women in colleges and universities and their low percentage in student governments.”
The Political Science club is bringing in Vice President of the Associate Students of University of Wyoming Jaynie Welsh and one of the female representatives from the local government to speak at the program.
“We are not excluding anyone, everyone is allowed to come but it’s definitely coming out from the angle of there aren’t enough women in elected positions and that’s a problem we wanna solve but everyone is allowed to come,” Skinner said. “Everyone will benefit from coming.”
Even though the program is geared towards influencing women, everyone is invited to come and attend this free event.
“It’s a great approach by the Political Science club,” UW freshman Nick Byers said. “Since the program is open to all, we boys can also get some ideas on how to run for the school government.”
According to the Washington Post, for every one woman holding a political office in the United States, there are three men; and, women hold only 21 percent of those seats nation wide.
“There are less numbers of women in the government offices and other political offices, we definitely need to increase our numbers in such areas,” UW senior Amanda Costa said.
The program will be held on Saturday, March 24, from noon until 4 p.m. in the Family Room at the Student Union.
