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Centers and Institutes
The People’s United Center for Women & Business is dedicated to creating and growing a community of women focused on achieving their professional goals and sharing their wisdom and experiences with each other through skill-building workshops, motivational events and networking opportunities.
The center brings together women at all stages of work, life and backgrounds to learn from and support each other. In recent months, the center has offered virtual events focused on topics such as hope, resilience and healing during adversity. Events focused on ways to increase skills, self-awareness and resilience while preparing for the future. As the pandemic stretched into the fall semester, the center conducted events centered on mindfulness, networking and inclusion.
The center will continue this work into the spring semester, hosting a variety of large events with speakers and more intimate coffee chats.
A schedule of events will be posted in January.
To provide opportunities for women to achieve their professional goals as well as to build a community focused on achieving those goals consistent with their personal values. This community of women and their allies is committed to lifelong learning, is eager to share, and includes the external community, students, alumni, faculty and staff. Our center is devoted to preparing our community for enlightened and engaged citizenship.
The center, as part of a thriving, three-campus university, provides programs designed to educate and inspire women focused on achieving their personal and professional best through lifelong learning. The center also facilitates connections and thereby builds and develops an engaged community, where wisdom and experience are shared with each other to educate, inspire and foster growth.
Ambitious women and their allies coming together to engage in learning to empower themselves and others.
The center is part of a dynamic and growing university with a commitment to academic excellence and to building a strong sense of community enlightenment and engagement. It serves the needs of women professionals by providing opportunities for lifelong learning, professional development and community-building and citizenship.
“We felt it was important to continue to meet the needs of our community, especially during this time. We utilized virtual platforms to present our programming to ensure our community could continue its personal and professional development.”
Professors Julia Fullick-Jagiela, right, and Kiku Jones were appointed co-directors of the People’s United Center for Women & Business.
Co-Director Press Release
Two PUCW&B research grants will be awarded in the amount of $2,500 each to support faculty and/or student research that aligns with the center's mission.
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Mindfulness is more than just something practiced in quiet monasteries by Buddhist monks. In fact, nowhere is mindfulness—the ability to focus awareness on the present moment and acknowledge thoughts and feelings without judgement–more necessary than in the fast-paced, highly competitive business world.
The People's United Center for Women & Business hosted an interactive workshop on mindfulness in the workplace on April 20, 2017. The workshop, presented by Cheryl L. Jones, chief mindfulness officer at The Mindful Path, LLC, focused on lowering stress, managing distractions, cultivating emotional intelligence and improving relationships in the workplace.
“Mindfulness is about noticing what’s happening within you and around you with a gentle, open mind,” Jones explained. “I believe it is the key to creating healthy and sustainable business practices for individuals, organizations and communities.”
Jones has been a certified health and wellness coach and an authority on mindfulness for more than 20 years. Her inspiring workshop echoed the center's mission to empower women to achieve their professional goals.
“Cheryl is a skilled teacher with a real passion for helping women reduce stress, build resilience and improve poise through mindfulness,” said Judy Gedge, associate teaching professor of business law.
For Jones, mindfulness isn’t just a cognitive tool for practicing mental and emotional self-care, but a way to help an organization improve its workplace culture. Mindful leadership and increased employee well-being and performance, she says, enables a company to attract and retain talent, achieve business excellence, navigate change and improve employee engagement.
“Mindfulness teaches professionals to clearly see how their work aligns with the objectives of their organizations and how they can be accountable for their part in its success,” Jones said. “Practitioners learn how to transform the way they work every day."
Judy Olian, Quinnipiac's president, and Sara Longobardi, senior executive vice president of retail banking at People’s United Bank, shared stories and tips from their distinguished careers to inspire more than 300 professionals and students in November 2018.
To celebrate Women Entrepreneurship Week, Quinnipiac’s People’s United Center for Women & Business and the Women Presidents' Educational Organization joined forces to present a panel of three successful Connecticut women business owners from different industries in October 2019.
Kathy McAfee, America’s marketing motivator, speaks to students and faculty attending the o “Defining You” program hosted in April 2019 by the PUCW&B.
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In collaboration with the School of Business, the center launched a graduate student affinity group, Graduate Women in Business, which aims to promote a spirit of solidarity among Quinnipiac’s graduate students through a variety of educational and social events. This group serves to empower graduate women studying business by creating inclusive spaces to grow authentic connections, further gender equity and forge partnerships on and off campus. During Spring 2020, the group hosted a virtual book club that culminated in a live Zoom session with the author, Kate Crocco. It also had a weekly virtual Netflix Watch Party, virtual happy hours, and a virtual wellness event with Tami Reilly, director of fitness and well-being, called “Living Well While Living Online."
We believe education doesn’t begin and end inside the classroom. We live in an increasingly diverse and complex world that demands the knowledge, collaboration and empathy required to deliver meaningful impact.
Whether it’s turning ideas into viable business applications, or digging through human history by analyzing ancient artifacts, each of our centers and institutes pairs our students and faculty to transform academic theory into real-world solutions.
Our broad liberal arts core complements deep expertise across more than 100 degree programs to provide an education that equips you for an extraordinary career. Whether you are in high school and ready to pursue your undergraduate degree, currently in the workforce and looking to advance your career through one of our graduate programs or have ambitions of becoming a lawyer or doctor, we have the schools, programs and faculty that will help unlock your potential.