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Spiritual Development Planning Goal #3
2004-2006

1. What is a visionary goal that your unit set? 

To create the Women’s Forum, a series of events designed to offer graduating female seniors some helpful, creative and wise advice as they make the transition from college into the next stage of the journey.

The goals for the Women’s Forum are:

  • To encourage immediate and life-long learning and growth through teaching, self-reflection, dialogue and action
    • To help students begin to think about how each topic discussed may affect, determine or guide their future
    • Growth in basic understanding of the topics - to present data/statistics on various topics as they relate to women (i.e. how finances affects women…married, single, divorced, widowed, etc.)
    • Encouragement to reflect on how they might plan for their future given a variety of scenarios (i.e. being single, being married, married with no children, married with children, single, widowed or divorced with children, etc.)
  • To offer various narratives from a variety of special female speakers consisting of faculty, staff and alumni from the PLNU community.
  • To encourage students to discern ways that they can craft their life goals and dreams in an effort to live meaningful Christian lives that impact vocational, familial and relational aspects of their life in meaningful and holistic ways.
  • To prepare female students for career, family and life in a spirit of support and encouragement

2. What information and data did you use to set this goal? 

The idea for the Women’s Forum came from a variety of informal and formal information:

  • Informal feedback from female students who had participated in the annual Women’s Retreat organized by the Office of Spiritual Development.
  • The need for a campus dialog on women’s issues was identified as important by graduating female seniors, particularly those who had been involved in leadership positions in Student Ministries.
  • Conversations with female faculty and staff who work directly with students had also identified this as a need.
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3. What actions did you take to try to reach this goal?

  • Discipleship Ministries in the Office of Spiritual Development, originated the concept for this event.  The Director of Discipleship Ministries, Sylvia Cortez invited the Director of the Women’s’ Studies Program, Linda Beail to partner in developing and hosting the forum.
  • The leadership team gathered a group of faculty & staff women to give shape to the overall plan (Bettina Pedersen, Carol Blessing, Lois Wagner, Melissa Tucker, Caye Smith and Cynthia Ovando-Knutson)
  • Together, the group collectively narrowed down the topics and facilitators for each session and designed the format of each session (see 2005 Schedule for the Women’s Forum for a list of topics).
  • The series was advertised (card invitations to every female senior, as well as various forms of advertising throughout campus)
  • We coordinated efforts to host author Lauren Winner and have her as our final speaker
  • Coordinated a closing dinner with all of the students
  • Evaluations went out to students via email six months after graduation (we received 15 back)

4. What progress did you make?

Our first year (Spring 2005) was very successful.  We had approximately 35 women attend consistently.  Each forum was facilitated by a different faculty or staff woman which allowed for various teaching and presentation styles.   The forums included the following elements throughout the semester:

  • Ritual Reading at the beginning of each forum
  • Panel discussions for Q&A that included various faculty, staff & alumni
  • Journaling activities
  • Small Groups
  • Lecture/presentations
  • Handouts with data about various topics
  • Large Group Discussion
  • Coffee/Tea served

As the result of the assessment done after the first year, the leadership team set the schedule for the second year (Spring of 2006).  See 2006 Schedule for the Women’s Forum for a list of topics.

In addition, based on student input, the forums will include more discussion and interaction periods.  2006 evaluations for the forum will be given before the students graduate from PLNU.  The leadership team is currently discussing the possibility of developing a type of evaluation or contact with these students a few years from now.

5. What information and data did you use to evaluate your progress?

  • The forums are relatively small (35 students) so it is possible to gain a great deal of feed back via informal conversation. 
  • A participant list is maintained to track the level of student involvement.  See Women’s Forum Participant Data for summary participant data.
  • A survey was sent to the students who participated in the 2005 Women’s Forum (the 2006 is currently underway).  See 2005 Women’s Forum Survey Data for survey data.

Supporting Documentation:

2005 Schedule for the Women’s Forum
2006 Schedule for the Women’s Forum
Women’s Forum Participant Data
2005 Women’s Forum Survey Data