Woman power fostered by institute
The Lantern, 10 August 2000

Devra Wanetik
Lantern staff writer

Though many students at Ohio State may consider the kegger on the corner to be the best option for weekend plans, Gretchen Jeffries has a different suggestion: Woodhull Institute.

The Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership is a program geared towards training women between the ages of 21 and 29 to assume positions of power and influence within society and the business world.

The skills needed to achieve this are taught through weekend programs focused on development in the areas of business and entrepreneurship, arts and media, politics, law and community advocacy.

Jeffries, 24, an Ohio State graduate who is bound for law school in Texas in the fall, found out about Woodhull while flipping through a Flair magazine.

“It was the last article in the magazine and I read it because I saw Naomi Wolf’s name,” Jeffries said.

Wolf, best-selling author on women in America and an advisor for the Gore campaign, founded the program with writer and commentator Margot Magowan three years ago to “create a new generation of women leaders,” according to the article which appeared in Flair’s holiday ’99 issue.

According to Jeffries, the program met its objectives in her case.

Since returning from her weekend at Woodhull, Jeffries said she’s gotten “a lot of comments. I walk into a room differently because I have this added confidence. I know that people don’t look at me and see a 24-year-old young girl, they see someone who is in this job because she worked to get to this job and earned her position, which is a different way of thinking,” she said.

She was so enthused about the program that Kaycee Ferrell, a senior journalism major from Bowling Green, who works with Jeffries, became interested in attending.

“I started working the week she got back from the weekend program and she couldn’t stop talking about it. It just sounded like something I really wanted to get into,” Ferrell said.

Liba Beyer, a recent OSU graduate who works at the Hillel on 16th Avenue, heard about the program directly from Wolf during her recent visit to OSU.

“Ms. Wolf highlighted the goals and successes of the Woodhull institute and encouraged people to apply,” Beyer said of Wolf’s speech to students.

While Beyer hopes to learn about networking and financial management upon acceptance to the program, Ferrel is interested in studying salary management and public speaking if she is accepted.

Ferrel has decided that “it’s something I really want to do and if it takes a couple of times (of applying until she is accepted), then that’s what it takes.”

Jeffries considers the Woodhull experience, which consists of a class of 20 women and provides its graduates with the ability to network and help each other via the Internet, to be a valuable experience and suggests that “anyone who has really big dreams and wants to make sure they achieve them, should do this.”