Meeting of the Minds with the UWI Guild of Students 2015-16

Meeting of the Minds with the UWI Guild of Students 2015/16

Date: April 16, 2015  

Hosts: 51% Coalition in partnership with FES Jamaica

The Young Women’s Leadership Initiative (YWLI) a member of the 51% Coalition which operates on the UWI Mona Campus was particularly heartened by the recent election of a number of female student leaders to positions of leadership on the Guild of Students. The YWLI noted that in its over fifty-year history on the UWI Mona Campus the Guild of students only now elected its 8th female student president. Elsa Leo Rhynie in her 1998 study noted “women do form part of the guild executive and guild council, but there appears to be a level above which they are not elected” (1998). Leo Rhynie went on further to note that even though women are the majority group on campus that voting power is not translated into the election of candidates for top positions in the Guild.

For the 2015/16 academic year this changed, as the top leadership of the Guild is almost entirely female, (7:3). This has raised a number of queries and curiosity around whether or not a ‘women led’ Guild of Students can be an effective Guild. The ‘Meeting of the Minds’ - facilitated by the 51% Coalition in partnership with Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) - was aimed at raising this issue and more.