Lecture Topics

• College Women as Life Entrepreneurs
  Many working women find themselves in the position of trying to meet everyone’s needs; their employer, aging parents, friends, spouses or boyfriends. It is easy for them to become overwhelmed and consequently take career or life paths that don’t provide them with personal fulfillment.
  
  To avoid leading the life that everyone else wants, or missing out on important professional or personal opportunities, college women perhaps should think more like "life entrepreneurs." An entrepreneur is defined as someone who "organizes, manages and assumes the risk of a business or enterprise." A life entrepreneur is essentially a woman who is controlling her own destiny.
  
  The discussion will explore how college-aged, working women can design lives that meet their professional and personal goals. It will also explore concepts related to making work-life choices and setting boundaries to achieve them.
• First Lady Michelle Obama: A Role Model for College-aged, Working Women
  First Lady Michelle Obama represents the modern woman. She is an Ivy League trained attorney, whose impressive resume includes: Former associate dean at the University of Chicago; a member of six boards of directors and Vice President, Community and External Affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals. In this position she was responsible for all programs and initiatives that involve the relationships between the hospitals and the community as well as management of the hospitals' business diversity program. She is also married to a high-powered spouse and the mother of two small children.
  
  How did Michelle Obama achieve all of this aided only by her mother? The discussion looks at the theory women can, "have it all, just not at the same time." Particularly, how does a college aged, working woman need to strategically think about her life to achieve all of her goals? How do working women in general make choices about their lives and careers that correspond to their values and interests?
• Who's Your Mama? The Unsung Voices of Women and Mothers: A Work-Life Discussion for College Women
  A discussion centered on the motherhood anthology, Who's Your Mama? The Unsung Voices of Women and Mother, edited by Yvonne Bynoe with a foreword by Rebecca Walker that presents the perspectives of a racially and socio-economically diverse group of women who identify with Hip Hop generation/Gen-X.
  
  Their stories provide instructive insight to college women about how Hip Hop generation/Gen-X women are crafting lives and families that reflect their values, personalities and ideas about "Work-Life balance."