Women’s History Month events begin on Bison Hill

Hannah Ledford, Assistant News Editor

Throughout the years, women have made great strides in gaining rights, status and meaning in society. 

Because March serves such a strong purpose in the life of women and women activists, Oklahoma Baptist University has begun celebrating women’s history through various events on campus. 

Assistant Dean of Students, Jonathan Solomon, said this Women’s History Month serves as an important milestone for OBU. 

“This is our first time celebrating Women’s History Month.  We wanted to think of ways that we as a community, and also the Office of Multicultural Affairs, could highlight women,”  Solomon said.

“Because OBU’s campus has such a high population of women, it is very important to honor this month properly. This university is 60 percent women, and so I think it is important to be able to highlight that,” Solomon said.  “What we’re doing is we are using an opportunity to educate the student body on the history of women’s rights, where we are today as a country, talk about gender roles, talk about women in church, just anything that we can do to highlight and bring awareness to women and women who have done absolutely great things in society.” 

Solomon said he and others he works with have figured out how to spread information about Women’s Month online.

“We just created a social media page for both Instagram and Twitter for the OBU Office of Multi-Cultural Affairs,” Solomon said.  “It will be ‘OBU_OMA’ and throughout the month each day we will highlight a different woman in history.” 

Kysha Miller, student at OBU and student worker for Solomon, shared about her personal views about Women’s Month. 

“For me, being celebrated on OBU’s campus shows that we value womanhood, we value the role that women play, we value the role that God created us to play, and we value what women in history have done and how far they’ve brought us along to create a more equal society.”

Of the many events to be presented on OBU’s campus during the month of March, Miller shared that her favorite will incorporate many of OBU’s own professors. 

“I’m really excited for the reclaiming womanhood panel,” Miller said. “It is going to feature female professors from OBU’s campus and we are going to show the Ted Talk of ‘Killing Us Softly.’ They [the professors] are going to talk about what it means to be a woman in the field that they work in, what marginalization they face, how they overcome it, and what they feel like they bring uniquely to the table as a woman.” 

OBU has many hopes about the effects of celebrating women’s history.

Solomon said he looks forward to seeing women become strengthened because of it. 

“One of the things I hope that it would do is to empower the women on our campus, to spark a conversation about gender roles and about privileges that males have, and be able to utilize our privilege as males to be able to stand up for the rights of women,” Solomon said.  

Miller said she hopes for this to continue father than just Women’s History Month.

“I hope it continues to be celebrated,” Millers said. “I hope it is responded to positively by students on campus.  I hope that it encourages the men on this campus to recognize and appreciate women better than they have before.” 

Solomon said he wants women to feel welcome.

“I would like female students at OBU to know that this office is for them as well.”

Miller said that she wants the men on campus to know that their participation is important for the celebration to continue. 

“I would tell men to care to come to these events to learn and to open their eyes.”