Grand Valley State University will host the ATHENA Connections conference Nov. 18 to prepare college women for leadership in higher education and beyond.

Sponsored by the GVSU Women’s Center, the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce, the Women’s Commission, the women and gender studies program and GVSU Career Services, the event provides a setting for college students to interact with women leaders in business and higher education.

“While great gains in equality for women are always being accomplished, there remains a number of issues that having connections as a college-age student can help young women navigate work—and life—with the experience of quality mentorship,” said Jessica Jennrich, director of the Women’s Center at GVSU.

The ATHENA Connections conference will provide an informative and interactive way for students to consider their own professional and personal life journeys while surrounded by individuals who have succeeded in their respective fields.

“The goal is to give students an opportunity to interact with women leaders,” Jennrich said. “The goal is for students to learn more about women in leadership so they can meet potential employers and role models, network with the community and develop steps to becoming an authentic leader.”

Highlighting this year’s event is the acknowledgment of 2013 Athena recipient Jeanne Englehart, vice president of client management at The Charter Group, a mergers and acquisitions firm in Grand Rapids.

Englehart will be discussing how the eight tenets of the Athena Leadership Model currently function and have functioned in her life. The eight tenets are authentic self, celebration and joy, collaboration, courageous acts, fierce advocacy, giving back, learning and relationships.

Englehart will also focus on the idea that women should not only see themselves as leaders but gain the skills necessary for successful leadership in the 21st century.

Founded in 1982 by Martha Mayhood Mertz, Athena International is a nonprofit organization that seeks to support, develop and honor female leaders. The program inspires women to reach their full potential and strive to create balance in leadership worldwide.

The program also highlights the life journeys of successful women, illuminating the challenges and successes they have faced and continue to face in determining a career path, combining work and family, and making professional connections.

“Think about Rosa Parks, who from the authenticity of her core, refused once again to go to the back of the bus,” Mertz said at a recent Athena International Leadership Conference. “Consider Mother Theresa, who expressed her leadership by the touch of her hand, by the healing of her voice, by the power of her presence—always giving hope. These are but two examples, albeit great examples, of women’s ways of leading that have changed the world.”

The conference will be held from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in the Grand River Room of the Kirkhof Center. For more information regarding the conference, visit www.gvsu.edu/women_cen.

[email protected]