During her freshman year, Jamie Vinick found that of the available networking clubs for women, they were focused only in the communications and business industry. She was looking for an organization that would connect women from all types of majors to professionals in various fields and to other female students on campus.   

With no prospective clubs in sight, she started her own student organization: The Women’s Network.  

Since her sophomore year, Jamie has spent time growing the organization and cultivating its impact. As founder and president of the organization, she began gaining members through distributing flyers at freshman dorms and knocking on doors.  

“I thought it was going to be a miserable failure,” said Jamie. “I was expecting 20 people to attend the first meeting, and 180 people showed up. Now, we’re one of the largest organizations on campus.” 

However, Jamie and the growing leadership of The Women’s Network have not stopped there. The Women’s Network is expanding its reach to five other campuses across the country. The networking club will open chapters at Cornell University, University of Florida, University of Texas at Austin, University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of California-Berkeley.  

The first meetings of these organizations will begin Feb. 12 nationwide. Molly Lawrence, a freshman accounting and public relations major, oversees relations between campus ambassadors and the Syracuse chapter.  

“I mean it is at the end of the day, a networking club,” Lawrence said. “And so the larger the network overall, not just on each individual campus, just really the more impactful the club can actually be.” 

Jamie Vinick started The Women’s Network as a means to connect female students across a wide variety of college majors and bring industry professionals to speak. Courtesy of Jamie Vinick

According to its ambassador guide, the organization aims to help its members explore traditional and non-traditional career paths as well as develop soft skills needed to network.

 The organization brings in female guest speakers from a variety of professions. Past speakers at Syracuse have included CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins, SNL writer Claire Friedman, and San Francisco-based venture capitalist Nicole Quinn. 

Gaby Vinick, president of the University of Wisconsin-Madison chapter and sister of Jamie, says she and her peers felt that The Women’s Network filled a need for female empowerment on her campus.  

“We’re really all about celebrating ambition, and I think that is so, so important,” she said. “I think a lot of women especially want to feel proud of that they’re driven and really just to connect with people in an authentic and meaningful way.”  

Clare Sellers, a sophomore at Cornell, wanted to build a life outside of the classroom. So, when Jamie approached her about leading a Cornell chapter of The Women’s Network, Sellers jumped at the chance to get more involved with the community.   

Sellers also saw the club as a way to make Cornell’s campus feel smaller. As a transfer student, she was always looking for ways to meet new people from diverse majors and backgrounds.  

“It feels like such a perfect opportunity to be meeting women with the common denominator of women supporting women,” said Sellers.   

Since its founding, Jamie Vinick said that The Women’s Network has become one of the largest student organizations on campus. Courtesy of Jamie Vinick

The Women’s Network succeeded in bridging the gap between interdisciplinary female students and connecting them to various industry professionals. Steph Hausman, a senior in advertising and marketing, says she’s proud of the types of speakers she’s been able to bring to the organization.  

As the networking relations chair, Hausman brought in Peace Corps officer Rachel Katz to FaceTime into a meeting. Katz, who is currently serving in Peru, gave the club members the chance to learn about post-grad fellowship opportunities. 

“Our goal is to connect women in all different fields and be able to hear from women, not just in our own industry, but other industries that we might not have been exposed to,” said Hausman.  

As well as alumni networking events and resume building workshops, the Syracuse chapter has taken annual networking trips to New York City. The organization has met with companies including CNN, NBC, Hulu, Bloomberg and Spotify.  

Jamie says that members have been able to gain internship opportunities through networking events by the organization. She hopes the new chapters see the same success the Syracuse chapter has.  

“This is just the beginning,” said Jamie. “As we continue to expand, our hope is to positively touch the lives of hundreds and thousands of students within the next few years.”

 

Published on January 26, 2020 at 10:05 pm

Contact Amy: abnakamu@syr.edu