To celebrate and empower women of color while offering a space for people to connect, the Multicultural Resource Center joined SUNY Broome Student Development to host the inaugural Women of Color Summit last Saturday.

From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the University Union, individuals first gathered in the Mandela Room before splitting off into classrooms to attend different workshops and learn from panelists.

The topics discussed during these workshops and panels — including “personal development, entrepreneurship, holistic health, and navigating social, academic, or career challenges as women of color,” according to Kayla Colon, a coordinator at the Multicultural Resource Center — each aligned with the summit’s theme, “Shattering the Glass Ceiling.” The event saw two keynote speakers: Joyce Shim, a vice provost for academic and faculty affairs at New Jersey’s Ramapo College, and Sharon Ball, a poet and a current board trustee for the Decker Foundation.

“The primary objective of the summit was to create a space where women of color could build meaningful relationships, celebrate their diverse heritage, and learn how to continue breaking barriers within their communities,” Colon wrote to Pipe Dream. “Our goal was to foster a sense of solidarity, collective love, self-love, and empowerment, while also providing actionable strategies for both personal and communal advancement.”

Colon provided a list of the offered workshops, which included: “From Passion to Action: The Power of Student Involvement,” “Fearless Leadership: Owning Your Power and Shattering Barriers,” “Building Bridges: Navigating New Beginnings,” “Procurement Strategies: Building a Business for the Future,” “Shattering the Glass Ceiling: ‘Research and Practice’” and “Citizen Action 101.”

The student involvement workshop hosted four undergraduate students from BU and SUNY Broome who shared their experiences as student leaders, focusing on how they came into their roles and how they overcame challenges. Toward the end, a Q&A session was offered, where panelists offered advice on maintaining a work-life balance while assuming leadership roles and how these roles have transformed their own leadership during their time in college.

After the earlier workshops concluded, attendees reconvened in the Mandela Room for lunch, where they heard from the summit’s first keynote speaker, Shim — a “Korean American, daughter of immigrant parents, and sister of a U.S. Army chaplain,” according to the event’s program. Also a tenured professor of social work and a two-time Fulbright Specialist, Shim holds a Ph.D. and dual master’s degrees from Columbia University and is the recipient of the New Jersey Senate Award and General Assembly Award for Distinguished Contribution to Immigrant Communities.

Colon said that in selecting a keynote speaker, organizers were looking for people with not only an inspiring personal story but who “also embodied the values of resilience, leadership, and community.”

Throughout the lecture, Shim described her experiences as an Asian American woman in academia and the obstacles she overcame at a young age. Her discussions about navigating self-doubt or imposter syndrome and the microaggressions she faced throughout her academic career “resonated with the audience,” Colon added.

At the end of her talk, Shim opened the floor for questions. She spoke about how, as a mentor, she provides a space for students facing paths similar to hers in academic environments.

“I make sure that I go around and be with our faculty members and our students, so the students know there’s a woman who is in that position who is not conventional-looking,” Shim said.

Ball, the closing keynote speaker, has worked in a variety of fields, including as a senior cultural editor at NPR, as executive director of the Broome County Arts Council, and, following an unsuccessful run for the New York State Senate in 2016, an end-of-life celebrant.

State Sen. Lea Webb ‘04, an alumna of SUNY Broome and BU and a former educator at the University’s Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, returned to her alma mater to speak at the summit.

“This summit emphasized fostering connection, growth, and resilience among high school juniors and seniors, undergraduates and graduate students who identify as women in minority communities,” Webb wrote in an Instagram post.

Among the final few workshops before the summit’s closing was “Shattering the Glass Ceiling: Research and Practice,” hosted by Janee Slade, the assistant director of Talon Academy and success initiatives at SUNY Brockport, and Paige Watkins, who works as a senior strategist consultant with the Payments & Deposits consulting practice at Velera, ”the nation’s premier payments credit union service organization and an integrated financial technology solutions provider.”

They spoke about their experiences in higher education and corporate America, describing findings that there exists greater “psychological weight” facing women and minorities when working toward the same professional milestones as their white male counterparts. Slade said that as a woman of color, her accomplishments are often minimized.

“When you’re in certain spaces, you will always be unfortunately marginalized until people understand your full credentials, and I’ve had to fight to be recognized in that way,” Slade said.

“Understanding your worth and your value before anybody else, that is so important,” she added shortly after.