Drew Davis, Reporter
@ddaviscourant
On Wednesday, November 19, Dr. Sarah Goldberg spoke to students in the Wagner room about her journey through the field of oncology as a woman. Dr. Goldberg is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Yale Cancer Center of Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven where she splits her time between caring for patients and researching treatments in labs. Dr. Goldberg spoke during the lunch period as a guest speaker to Women in the Workforce Wednesdays, a club started last year by sophomore Tessa Piontkowski.
Women in the Workforce Wednesdays holds a luncheon once a semester to discuss gender differences in industries. “The luncheons are interactive discussions in which students learn about gender differences from successful women in industries where women’s work capabilities are often underestimated,” Tessa said.
Businesswomen come as guest speakers to share their academic choices and the logistics of their careers. “Dr. Goldberg has her MD/MPH with her master’s in public health from Harvard University,” Tessa said. “She researches treatments to help lung cancer patients overcome cancer or to ease their symptoms.”
Interested students participated in the interactive luncheon with Dr. Goldberg. “Some of the people attending want to be doctors and it was cool how they could talk to her and ask questions,” sophomore and Vice President Eliza Haney said.
Eliza has been a member of the club since the first luncheon on April 23, 2013. The first guest speaker was Laura Wallace, the general manager at Microsoft’s New York Metro Enterprise and Partner group. “She talked about the lack of representation of females in technology and the opportunities for women especially in programming,” said Tessa.
The luncheons started as a project idea that Tessa submitted to the Wilburn Fellowship, a program with the mission to foster awareness of diversity. Tessa was awarded a $1000 incitement by the fellowship to provide lunch for the luncheons. With the help of the club’s faculty advisor, English teacher Heidi D’Acosta, Tessa scheduled the luncheon. “Tessa does the organizing so my job is to confer with her, advertise the seminars, and attend,” Ms. D’Acosta said.
As an extension of the project, Tessa created the Women in the Workforce Wednesday club to further spread awareness of feminism through the medium of luncheons. “I think feminism is about women being equal to men in a 50/50 ratio,” Tessa said. “Balance and respect are key because women shouldn’t have to face harassment and stereotypes at work like they do now.”
Tessa wants to encourage women to have successful careers, equal to those of men and still be able to care for their families. “Women are stereotyped to stay at home. They assume they can not balance family and work and that you have to compromise success in their career to have a stable family,” Tessa said. “The luncheons are great because we can all learn from women who have first hand successfully overcame that stereotype.”
The club plans to focus on increasing member participation. “From last year to this year the number of both females and males who joined has increased,” Ms. D’Acosta said. “I hope that it will grow even more and that there will be more involvement from the group and consensus about who they would like to hear speak.”
Students in Women in the Workforce Wednesdays are also trying to broaden the clubs membership. “It is primarily sophomore based because Tessa and I mainly ask our friends to go,” Eliza said. “There are only a couple upperclassmen that go so we are trying to target more grades.”
Regardless of size, the club plans to continue spreading awareness of gender inequality in the workforce. “Women in the Workforce Wednesday’s message is that there are career options for women,” Tessa said. “Gender differences are prominent and we want women to feel that they are capable of going into these fields, being successful, having a family, and finding the rewarding balance between them all.”
