Senior Selvi Bunce sat down with Chimes to discuss the upcoming Women in Action event she is organizing for the night of November 28 and some of the background that has led her to this point. The Women in Action Conference aims to provide networking opportunities as well as professional, social, and spiritual advice.

Bunce has been involved in Student Senate for a good portion of her time at Calvin, beginning as a sophomore and running for president the spring of her junior year. Although she lost the election, she is known as a catalyst on campus and she continues to be active in the Senate community, especially with regard to the Women in Action event.

“It’s kind of an adjunct position,” Bunce explains. “I work through one of the Senate teams that is assigned to my project.”

Having the event organized through Student Senate will allow it to be “institutionalized” as a potential semesterly or yearly event that will continue on after Bunce graduates. She sees Women in Action as a night “for women all across Calvin to get together and share the spirit of womanhood.”

The night will commence with some awards given in recognition of notable Calvin women. From there it will be split into two parts: four women speakers who will speak on either “mental health, physical health, health and community, or spiritual health,” and a “resource fair” for people to connect with different organizations around Grand Rapids related to women’s issues, such as Safe Haven, Alpha Women’s Center, Period, the Susan G. Komen Foundation and the Health Net of West Michigan.

Bunce’s drive behind her involvement in women’s empowerment at Calvin came from a summer experience she had working for the state of Minnesota. She was surrounded by a community of women of color in leadership.

“My supervisor was a woman of color, her supervisor was a woman of color, and her supervisor was a woman of color,” said Bunce.

It was a transformative experience that opened her eyes to what was possible.

“There were so many positions I could see myself in, like physically, right there. Doors were opened and I felt so enabled, so it was actually that summer that I got this vision for Women in Action.”

Bunce shared that Calvin puts appropriate emphasis on cultivating community and support for women. She interviewed a number of students about their experience of being empowered by women at Calvin and received an influx of positive responses.

“People talked about Ladies’ Climb Night at Calvin, enjoying having female professors, being empowered as a floor with a female RA or doing women’s Bible studies,” said Bunce.

A trend Bunce has noticed is that “Calvin really does a good job of giving opportunities to specific groups of women on a smaller scale.”

Reflecting on her experience in Minnesota, she believes there is room for improvement at Calvin on a larger scale.

“I think we address community and women really well. I think what we fail to address is success and women. I want to see women pushing each other … [to] make connections and be successful in our careers.”

This next level of growth is the work Bunce is pursuing with the Women in Action conference, and she hopes other students will catch the vision of empowerment that she witnessed in Minnesota.