Women's and Pride Centers search for assistant director

A search committee comprised of four faculty and staff volunteers conducted open-session presentations where candidates for the assistant director position within the Women's and Pride Centers discussed their plans and visions for the future of the centers at SRU, explained why they are qualified for this position, and answered questions from the students, Women's Center student workers, staff and faculty in attendance.

The following photo gallery depicts the open-session presentation held on Tuesday, September 10 with Dr. Ashleigh Bingham, a graduate assistant to the gender studies program at Ball State University in Indiana.

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Dr. Ashleigh Bingham is one of the candidates for the assistant director position within the Women's and Pride Centers at SRU and a graduate assistant to the gender studies program at Ball State University. She stands before a small audience and introduces herself.

The audience consists of members of the search committee: Mr. Kevin McCarthy (the chair of the committee), Mr. Earl Coburn (a student success coach), Vanessa Vought (the coordinator of health promotion) and Dr. Emily Keener, a psychology professor. Dr. Cindy LaCom, the director of SRU's gender studies program, is also in attendance.

The rest of the audience consisted of students, student workers from the Women's Center, faculty and staff. The audience cares about and is invested in this process because the assistant director of the centers interacts so closely with students and other departments and organizations.

Dr. Bingham addresses the search committee's prompt: "Describe the strategies (programming and otherwise) that you would use at SRU to address what you see as the top issues facing women/womxn and LGBTQ+ students in colleges and universities."

Dr. Bingham discusses her plans and vision for the Women's and Pride Centers at SRU. She explains the three principles she has utilized in past programming and plans to utilize at SRU: invitation, investment and collaboration.

Dr. Bingham has an open discussion and answers questions from audience members following her presentation. One audience member asked Dr. Bingham if she's ever faced backlash from people with opposing views and opinions and how she would handle possible backlash from the SRU community.