The Women’s Resource Center held its 25th annual Women of Excellence Lunch on Thursday afternoon in the Student Center.
The three winners of the Women of Excellence award were Suzy Albert, a Fitness Initiatives Graduate Assistant, professor Elizabeth Currans in the women’s and gender studies department and professor Rebecca Martusewicz in the college of education.
Martusewicz said it is an honor to win.
“The women who nominated me are all powerful and brilliant young women, so for me to have them give me this kind of respect is just huge,” she said. “I’m shocked and really pleased.”
Albert said a lot of her opinions about being a women and her activism stems from her experience in the military. She said the environment at Eastern Michigan University is a change for her because it is “open to changing and open to morphing.”
“[It] has just been a really refreshing sort of experience for me in that it sort of undoes things that haven't felt so good in the past,” she said. “It’s like a step forward and that feels really good.”
Currans said she is especially flattered because she was nominated by one of her graduate students who she said she gets joy out of working with.
“For a student I respect a lot to have been the person to nominate me is particularly meaningful,”she said.
Sixteen students, faculty and staff members where nominated.
“I felt that everyone that was nominated deserved to be so and even though those were the only people nominated, there’s plenty of phenomenal women on this campus who deserve to be recognized for all the work that they do,” Simone Dixon, series programmer for the WRC, said.
Professor Kay Woodiel, a graduate program coordinator in the health education department, gave the keynote address.
“I’m glad that we were able to recognize her before she retired from campus,”Ellen Lassiter Collier, a program coordinator in the WRC, said.
Junior Celisa Guiterrez, harp performance major, performed "Scintillation" by Carlos Salzedo.
“I think when women are leaders, they just bring a unique approach that can do so much and be so effective in a different way [than men],” she said. “That’s important and that’s why this kind of event is so good.”
Darcy King, a sophomore majoring in public administration, said she wanted to support her friends who have been nominated and learn about other women’s accomplishments on EMU’s campus.
“I think that it’s very important to acknowledge and celebrate their accomplishments and to encourage more from our community,” she said.
