Athena Center: Making Young Leaders of the Future Today

This is a guest post by Natalia Quintero. Natalia is currently an undergraduate student pursuing a degree in International Relations with a minor in Spanish Literature and another minor in Gender Studies at Barnard College of Columbia University.

“Women are starting new businesses in huge numbers, but they are also failing in huge numbers,” says Christine Shin, a program director of the Athena Center for Leadership Studies at Barnard College.

With this alarming reality in mind, Christine helps lead a program at Columbia University’s Barnard College which helps to ensure that women have the skills to succeed, to be their own advocates in a personal, social and professional setting. “We just want to give them the skills to flourish.”

I was chatting about the Athena Scholars Program with Lis Castro, a fellow Athena Scholar and a political science major, who explained that it’s been so empowering for her because she is “surrounded by young, vibrant, intelligent, high-spirited women who are eager to learn about the multiplicity of historical issues that women have overcome, and how to solve those that still remain.” I couldn’t have put it better myself!

As a member of the program, I have reaped the benefits of having experienced, female mentors who are invested in my success. The program offers a full spectrum of instruction—arming us with a background of history and theory, then giving us ample practice through leadership labs and mentoring possibilities before setting us up with internships and other real-world opportunities. We are well prepared to put our education into action.

Last weekend I participated in a Leadership Lab on communication, entitled “Making Your Best Case—The Keys to Persuasive Communication.” It was led by Barbara Tannenbaum, a communications expert at Brown University and an international consultant for doctors, lawyers, state supreme and appellate court judges, and politicians. The lab was fascinating and empowering—left me feeling capable of communicating more effectively.

I look forward to my next lab on the “Basics of Investing,” after which I can add yet another tool to my skill set. Because I’m finding the program so informative and relevant, it’s easy to forget that it doesn’t just cater to me, an enthusiastic sophomore at Barnard. The truth is that the Athena Center focuses on teaching all women what we need to know to ensure our future collective success.

The labs offered are available to anyone who wants to refine existing skills or obtain new ones, with topics ranging from communications to entrepreneurship; though the labs do not exclude men, they do cater to issues from a woman’s perspective—issues that are particularly troublesome, such as salary negotiation in the workplace.

For a full listing of the labs and more information, please visit the Athena Center website.