Women in Leadership Breakfast | Ngā Māreikura
29 August 2019
Canterbury’s emerging young women leaders gathered at University of Canterbury (UC) yesterday to learn from inspiring alumnae and discuss the opportunities available to women at UC.
Emerging young women leaders gathered at UC yesterday to learn from inspiring guest speakers over breakfast.
The Women in Leadership Breakfast | Ngā Māreikura, attended by 130 female secondary school students, career advisors and teachers, featured three inspirational guest speakers beginning with Coralie Winn (Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Theatre and Film Studies), who is co-founder of the globally acclaimed creative social enterprise Gapfiller.
The second speaker was Neryda Duncan (Bachelor of Engineering with Honours in Mechanical Engineering) whose PhD research is with the award-winning MARS Bioimaging project, which has created world first colour x-rays.
Registrar for the Waitangi Tribunal, lead legal advisor to the Tribunal unit, Jamie-Lee Tuuta (Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, Māori and Indigenous studies, and a Bachelor of Laws) completed the programme.
UC is the first university in New Zealand to be led by two women: lawyer and UC alumna Sue McCormack as Chancellor and former Vice-Chancellor of South Africa’s largest research university Professor Cheryl de la Rey as Vice-Chancellor.
UC demonstrates a commitment to encouraging and empowering women’s leadership potential throughout the organisation. The ratio of female senior management team members is seven out of 14 and 50% of employees at UC are women. Women also hold key student leadership roles, including the UCSA Vice-President, and 2020 President-elect, Tori McNoe.
Attendees were encouraged to follow in the footsteps of the accomplished women at the event.
Opportunities for women at UC include the Emerging Leaders scholarship, and opportunities to become student leaders in UC programmes like Unilife, Go Canterbury, UC’s Māori and Pacific development teams and student and peer mentoring programmes like ENG ME!, which actively promotes a culture of inclusiveness in traditionally male sectors.
These programmes contribute toward students’ Co-Curricular Record (CCR), which recognises the skills and attributes gained from participating in pre-approved activities outside of academic study.
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