Student Leaders Forum to talk gender

Political commentator and former Rock the Vote president Jehmu Greene will headline tonight’s Student Leaders Forum, the student-centered counterpart to the World Leaders Forum, which has brought leaders ranging from France’s Nicolas Sarkozy to Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Columbia.

Greene will be joined at the Italian Academy by four Columbia student leaders and University President Lee Bollinger in a panel discussion, titled “Women and Leadership in the 21st Century,” on the changing nature of women’s leadership.

Now in its third year, the Student Leaders Forum is a joint initiative of the Office of the Provost and the Student Affairs Caucus of the University Senate.

For Emily Kenison, BC ’11, the forum’s chair and a student senator, Greene was an ideal voice to lead this year’s conversation. “We’re really happy she’s on the panel,” said Kenison, who recalled seeing Greene speak on the third wave of feminism at the Steven Kasher Gallery in February.

“She [Greene] had such good, clean, concrete goals as to where this movement should go, how to transform the media being one of them, and that we need to incite a revolution to some extent. It’s not going to be the bra-burning feminists of the ’70s, but we still need people to recognize there are injustices and to speak out,” Kenison said.

Greene is president of the Women’s Media Center, an organization that seeks to amplify women’s voices in the media, and is a frequent commentator on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and other media outlets. Greene was also an adviser for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.

The panel will also feature four Columbia students, who plan to address their own experiences of gender inequality in their respective leadership roles.

Originally from Dhaka, Bangladesh, panelist Maisha Rashid, BC ’10, said she was inspired by female prime ministers to take up the cause of women’s leadership. She currently serves as the campus editor for the Columbia Political Review and is president of Columbia Model Congress.

“This year’s leadership forum is unique because it brings in campus leaders from very different leadership experiences to speak with a professional advocate for women’s leadership. This year’s theme discusses one of the most enduring discrepancies of our time—women leaders, their experience, and income inequalities,” Rashid said in an email.

Fellow panelists include Jia Ahmad, CC ’11, Janna Metzler, a second-year student in the Mailman School of Public Health, and Jose Robledo-Trujillo, a School of General Studies student and a University senator.

Robledo-Trujillo currently serves as the leader of a Stryker infantry platoon of 36 soldiers for the United States Army and hopes to bring his unique perspective to the discussion.

“I am obviously not a woman, but I have had the privilege of working with incredibly brilliant and talented women in the military and in student government. I can speak on their
difficulties and triumphs as seen only an observer can,” Robledo-Trujillo wrote in an email. Having served nine years in the United States Army on over 300 combat missions, Robledo-Trujillo had a female soldier under his command while in Afghanistan and currently works for a female commander in ROTC.

Kenison hopes for an “open, honest dialogue” that will engage panelists and audience members in a conversation that continues to resonate after the event’s completion.

“These kinds of panel discussions about women’s role in society are happening all over the city, all over America, and for students to take time out of their day to come to one brings to light so many issues,” she said. “This is something that pertains to everybody—men and women.”

emily.kwong@columbiaspectator.com