Throughout the history of Yale College Council, womxn in government have been combatting challenges that disproportionately affect women and gender minorities. For example, it was womxn who were responsible for the installment of a sexual wellness machine in Bass Library as well as for ensuring the accessibility of the LiveSafe app, which offers resources to sexual misconduct victims. 

However, low-income students, particularly those who seek to serve at the highest echelons of student government, often come up against financial barriers that can strongly inhibit their ability to pursue leadership opportunities and fully meet their YCC responsibilities. In order to make YCC a more accessible space, we hope to implement a stipend program to support students while they serve on YCC. 

If you would like to support this stipend program and make YCC a more powerful incubator for student leaders, please email the Womxn's Affinity Network chair, Aliesa Bahri ’22, at [email protected]. Thank you so much for your consideration!

In recognition of 50 years of coeducation at Yale College and 150 years of coeducation at Yale University, the Women's Leadership Initiative at Yale (YWLI) will be publishing a book of stories from alumni and current students. YWLI is seeking to collect pitches from as many people as possible in order to make the book representative of the many students who have come through Yale in the last 50 years. Pitches can be submitted for consideration through the link below until January 15th; YWLI will notify submitters by January 25th if their pitch has been chosen. Please direct any questions or concerns to [email protected]. Please share this link widely! 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc0LEn6_gd4jTRl4Rkz01fRbMdZCRRXPqTWP888ozq25hTijQ/viewform?fbclid=IwAR2U0MZPPv8bZAshxmfC0VmjA06yBpZJ14cVmzJPvB0_Jvwc8fYybKbSphY

Among the abundance of riches on the 50WomenAtYale150 website are images from the 50th anniversary Commemorative Weekend that was held on campus September 19-22, 2019. Be sure to check the calendar for new events that have been posted, Projects to Preserve Our History, and videos as well as the History of Women at Yale.

Mark your calendars for the 50WomenAtYale150 Celebration Weekend, November 6-7, 2020. More information to follow!

Deborah Rose has multiple and multidimensional connections with Yale. Let me count the ways: a First Woman who entered Yale College when doors were opened to women undergraduates in September ’69, Deborah has three Yale degrees: ’72, ’77 MPH, and ’89 PhD (in epidemiology). Her father, the late Frederick P. Rose ’44E, founding Chair of the Association of Yale Alumni (now Yale Alumni Association), received the Yale Medal in 1976. Husband Dr. Jan A.J. Stolwijk, now Professor Emeritus, was formerly Chair of the Yale Medical School Department of Epidemiology and Public Health. Daughter Sarah L.S. Rose ’17 now works on affordable housing, as does her uncle, Deborah’s brother Jonathan F.P. Rose ’74. Capping off this enumerative list, Deborah was the second woman of Yale College to receive Yale’s highest award for dedicated service to Yale in 2006, the Yale Medal, and half of the first father-daughter pair to be so recognized.

On Tuesday, October 22nd, YaleWomen DC hosted Patti Russo, Executive Director of the Women's Campaign School at Yale. WCS is a non-partisan, issue-neutral leadership program with a mission to increase the number and influence of women in elected and appointed offices in the United States and around the globe. Ms. Russo was interviewed by Eleanor LeCain ’73, a founding member of YaleWomen and the founder of YaleWomen DC. Ms. LeCain has a long history of involvement with political campaigns. The event drew about 25 women and was held at Vital Voices, a DC-based organization that seeks to build female leaders globally. Ms. Russo spoke about WCS’s history and the formidable impact the organization has had in inspiring and training women to lead since its founding more than 20 years ago. Several WCS alums in the audience  shared their own experiences of the transformative nature of the week-long summer program. By the end of the evening, many attendees were inspired to investigate the WCS further and were considering attending WCS’ one-day intensive training (The Basics) or its week-long summer training session. 

— Sara Romeyn ’91, YaleWomen DC Co-Chapter Head

Sarah Wakefield Adhya ’03 MEM shares her experience

On Sunday, November 10th, nearly 30 YaleWomen ​Connecticut alums, family and friends visited the ​Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. The visit included stops at the “Ancient Mesopotamia Speaks” exhibit, the entomology archives ​with Nicole Palffy-Muhoray '16 PhD (who is Assistant Director of Student Programs at the Museum), the Ladies First exhibit, which was mounted in conjunction with 50WomenAtYale150 to showcase women in STEM, and the Great Hall. We spoke with Sarah Wakefield Adhya '03 MEM, who joined the tour with her husband, Nilanjan Adhya '05 MBA, and their two children, aged 6 and 9.

(Yale Peabody Museum will soon undergo a comprehensive renovation. The Fossil Halls will close December 31, 2019 and the Museum will be closed to the public beginning July 1, 2020. Plan your visit soon!)

Our Mission: “To create a vibrant, engaged community of alums, drawn together by the common thread of our Yale experiences, that is committed to advancing women's voices and perspectives and to enriching and inspiring one another, Yale, and the world."

As YaleWomen approaches its first decade (a noteworthy milestone for an all-volunteer organization!) its leadership body, the YaleWomen Council, is seeking strong, energetic leaders committed to helping us sustain our progress and support our important mission. Please consider joining us! Read more here about how to apply to the YaleWomen Council.

Applications are due March 15, 2020. 

Left to right, Susan Lennon ’85 MPPM, Secretary and Immediate Past Chair; Jennifer Ebisemiju ’88, Chair; and Susan Pepin ’87 Vice Chair

The YAA Board of Governors Excellence Awards recognize alumni organizations that make a deep and lasting impact on the Yale alumni community. In November, YaleWomen received this coveted honor in recognition of the program we developed and hosted in March 2019 at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Awards for Excellence: Working Toward Gender Equity, which attracted over 170 attendees, featured the presentation of Lifetime Achievement Awards to Anita Hill '80 JD, Catherine Lhamon '96 JD, and Ann Olivarius '77, '86 MBA, '86 JD, and Impact Awards to Araceli Campos '99, C'Ardiss Gardner Gleser '08, Kamala Lopez, Rebecca Reichman Tavares '78, and Vera Wells '71. The celebration shined a light on Yale women alums who make a difference in their many different walks of life, as well as on issues that affect women. It also featured a panel discussion with the Lifetime Achievement honorees moderated by Joanne Lipman '83. (More information about YaleWomen’s Award for Excellence is here. 

The YAA Award serves as a broader Yale recognition of the impact of the YaleWomen event—an impact that was clearly felt by the many of the celebration’s attendees. Former YaleWomen Council member, Erin Endean ’80, ’82 MA, described the evening as “a really remarkable occasion!” Lisa Beth “LB” Friedman Savitz '88, who joined the Council in July, experienced the celebration through an intergenerational lens informed by her mother, Barbara Lander Friedman '65 MAT, and her son, Samuel Friedman Savitz '17. “My mother's experience at Yale colored the way I viewed my own relationship with the school. She and I both thought the '60s were the bad old days and the '80s promised a different experience. What was unexpected for us was how much about Yale and the world had not changed. The YaleWomen Award ceremony was a moment of acknowledging both progress and the lack thereof for women, and the significant role Yale women play in pushing that progress forward.” LB’s son, who was surprised and gratified to see attendees from his generation of Yalies at the celebration, added, “This speaks to how YaleWomen has been able to create an inclusive community where multiple generations of Yale women want to be a part of it and can bond over shared experiences.”

More information on the YAA award is here.

YaleWomen Global Newsletter | Fall 2019

• In Conversation with Ann Miura-Ko ’98, the Newest Member of the Yale Corporation and a Modern-Day "Wonder Woman"

• Thank You to Our Donors — You Make Our Work Possible

• Find Out What's Going On With the 50WomenatYale150 Celebration

• Celebrate in Style! Gear Available Online at Campus Customs

• YaleWomen NYC Hosts Seminar on How to Support Your Child's College Admissions Process

• YaleWomen DC Hosts Potluck with Alums and Undergraduates

Ann Miura-Ko ’98 is essentially a modern-day “Wonder Woman.” She is the newest member of the Yale Corporation, a Silicon Valley pioneer investor, a co-founding partner at Floodgate (a seed-stage venture capital firm), a wife, and a mother of three children.

YaleWomen Council member, Rose Jia ’07, spoke with Ann about being a woman at Yale and in her career; how she got to be a “Wonder Woman”; and her advice to women everywhere.

Ann grew up in Palo Alto, California, surrounded by technology. And yet, she never imagined she would end up in a world that would eventually fund the next generation of tech companies like Twitter, Twitch, Refinery29, and Okta. Her passion at the time lay with music, especially piano. When she chose to attend college, she decided on Yale because she knew she would be at an institution that would allow her to pursue her musical interests while getting a strong education.

At Yale, Ann’s interest in music opened a door to finding a sisterhood outside of her main course of study — electrical engineering — a major without many female students. She quickly found herself singing with Proof of the Pudding (an acapella group on campus), where she met an “incredibly dynamic group of diverse interests and backgrounds brought together by a common love for singing.” These women went on to become some of her closest friends and the women she most admired.

When Ann first began her career, she could not imagine she would one day be a repeat member of the Forbes Midas List and The New York Times Top 20 Venture Capitalists Worldwide. At that point in time, there just weren’t that many women in the field she could have looked up to. In almost every industry she was a part of — from electrical engineering at Yale to consulting to investing to getting her PhD at Stanford in mathematical modeling of computer security — women were far and few between. When she first approached the investing world, she asked one partner, “Do you know any female general partners in venture capital?” Their response: none on the East Coast and only a handful on the West Coast. In a February 2018 CNBC interview, Ann remarked: “There isn’t a multitude of people where you could just point to that person and say, ‘That’s the person I am going to be in 10, 20, 30 years.’ And I think that’s what’s tough.” Even today, women hold only 10 percent of all senior positions in private equity and venture capital firms globally (according to IFC paper).

Despite all these challenges, Ann made her way to the top. She didn’t see her future through gender-biased glasses; instead, she cared about being different. “It’s important to be different, not just better,” she emphasized. “Different is memorable, and different sticks.” She credited her technical PhD in venture capital as what differentiated her from her peers. “Being a woman can be different, but I don’t see it as a disadvantage or an advantage.” In venture capital, her successes were based on what companies she invested in and how well those companies performed. Being a woman didn’t change those factors. However, it did allow her to see and invest in companies that might have gone unnoticed and tap into new investment opportunities with female-led companies.

Ann has made it, but it wasn’t without some pitfalls. For women early in their careers, she has these words of wisdom:

Be self aware and train yourself to have a stronger and more professional presence.

“Earlier in my career, I was told I sounded really young,” Ann explained. “I remember replying, ‘Well, I’m 21, that’ll solve itself.’ My manager was a serious woman and said, ‘I’m not kidding. You need to listen.’ And so, she stuck me in a theater program, where we had to record voicemails and listen to the recordings. I was mortified when I heard my voice. I sounded like a 10-year-old. The theater director said, ‘Now, imagine if you were the CEO of a company and you got this voicemail. What do you think your reputation would be afterwards?’” After that, Ann modified her tone and ensured she presented herself professionally each time. According to Ann, “Presence is not just about how you are in person, but it’s also about what you represent. So listen to your voice, hear your speech patterns, watch your body language, and be aware of how you come off in all aspects of communication.”

Use the tool of interruption.

Ann encourages women to interrupt to get their points across. “Notice when others are interrupting and how effective they are in getting their points across,” she says. “As women, we’re told not to interrupt, but in many meetings, there are people who continue to speak and make their points many, many times. If you notice, it’s usually a guy who interrupts. It’s okay for us to interrupt so we can make our points. If interrupting still makes you uncomfortable, try saying something in the first ten minutes of a meeting (before things feel more intimidating) and prepare all the smart things you want to bring up in the meeting because you’ll feel more prepared and confident when speaking up.”

Remember that people say a lot of stupid things and most people don’t notice.

Ann emphasized how the consequence of saying something stupid is not as large as we think it is, so it’s oftentimes about getting over the hurdle of speaking up. And, we, as women, must learn to speak up.

After her formative years at McKinsey, then Charles River Ventures, and then the PhD program at Stanford, Ann became a co-founding partner at Floodgate, where she leads and mentors many people. When pressed on her leadership style and how other female leaders could emulate her, Ann responded: “There is no cookie-cutter style. You need to figure out your own personal style. Be the leader you wish you had when you were younger. Women have to make it up. [...] So, be the change that you want to see.” But most importantly, she noted, “be visible in the choices you’re making.” She gave an example of a leader being visible in her decision-making: Ann had been a PhD student attending a talk by a female academic. In the talk, she noticed the academic had brought her baby, who was in an infant car seat, and she was rocking the seat with one foot while giving her talk in front of everyone. For Ann, it was inspirational to see, especially since she had been debating whether to have a child during her PhD program. Later on, when Ann had her own children, she decided to bring one of them to a conference she had to attend. Many years later, the chief marketing officer of one of the companies she had backed told Ann how she had debated whether to bring her own child to a conference when she remembered Ann doing just that. As a result, this CMO brought her child to the conference. “I just love that lineage of: I saw it once and decided to do it myself, and then she saw it and did it as well,” Ann said fondly. “I told her by her doing that, she probably inspired another woman to do the same.”

Near the end of our conversation, we had to bring up the topic most women love and hate simultaneously: work/life balance. Is it doable or just a myth? Here was a woman who has differentiated herself in her career and has a loving husband, three adoring kids, and one spoiled pet. Could work/life balance be real? The answer: not really. “You have to decide what you’re willing to give up and what you won’t,” she advised. “Trade-offs are really hard because work can creep into every element of your life.” She personally dealt with work/life balance by having a strong support system, specifically, a strong partnership with her husband and having her parents close by. “It really does take a village,” she noted with a laugh.

Still wondering what this Wonder Woman Ann Miura-Ko is like? Here are some answers to a series of rapid-fire questions:

• Favorite food: Japanese comfort food (ramen, tonkatsu, tempura), basically everything mom makes
• Currently reading: Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
• Currently listening to: Whatever the kids want, which is usually bad pop music
• Currently watching: A Handmaid’s Tale
• Last internet search: Map of Barcelona
• Personal mantra: “Greatness is a decision”

— Rose Jia ’07 

Note: Background also include articles from Floodgate, Tim Ferris’ blog, CNBC, Forbes, and Yale.