REPORT ON THE GLOBAL WOMEN’S BREAKFAST, ORGANIZED BY THE FEMALE FACULTY MEMBERS OF THE INDUSTRIAL CHEMISTRY PROGRAMME ON FEBRUARY 14, 2023
- Post by: lmu
- February 15, 2023
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The Global Women’s Breakfast (GWB) is an annual program organized by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). It is held in conjunction with the United Nations Day of Women and Girls in Science. This is in alignment with SDGs 4 (Quality Education), 5(Gender Equality) and 17(Partnership with other goals). The goal of the GWB series is to establish an active network of people of all genders to overcome the barriers to gender equality in science. Groups from all types of science organizations from high schools, to science societies, universities, companies, governments and non-governmental organizations are always invited to host this event. GWB brings together people from all science disciplines.
Landmark University female faculty members and students in Sciences including Industrial Chemistry Programme, have hosted this event for five consecutive years, since 2019 till date.
The theme of GWB2023 was “Breaking Barriers in Science” with emphasis on the topic ‘Developing Effective Mentor-mentee Relationship’.
The meeting commenced with an opening prayer as the university principal officers were received for the programme.
The VC appreciated the women in chemistry for hosting the programme. She urged women to be involved in activities that could enhance their growth and relevance. In her words, she said “you cannot discover yourself if you are not involved”. She emphasized the role of
Mentoring in achieving success in life and that it is possible to gain career and academic speed if one is mentored well, especially in academics. She reiterated the need for science and the need to break barriers facing women in STEM. Some of the barriers facing women in science are distractions in form of competitive demands, emotions, relevance to societies, organizations, home demands, job expectations e.g responding to lifelines etc. She encouraged women to build their capacities so as to remain relevant in the society. She ended her remark by urging the audience to be attentive and make the most use of the meeting.
Afterwards, the ME welcomed everyone including the Dean of CPAS, HODs, the panel discussants, professors, members of faculty and students present. She read the address sent by the National Chairman of the Chemical Society of Nigeria. In the Chairman’s address, he stated the barriers faced by women in form of marginalization. He also encouraged networking and collaboration. Thereafter, the presentation was made on the topic: Developing Effective Mentor-Mentee Relationship.
The presenter started with the definition of mentoring. He stated the difference between mentoring and coaching, where coaching is targeted towards a prize, mentoring is targeted towards the prize. In other words, mentoring is a lifelong process. Other aspects of the presentation were phases of mentoring which include direction, training, support, motivation; characteristics of mentoring – being structured, strategic, measurable etc; forms of mentoring; mentoring models, mentoring in academics – teaching, research, career; benefits of mentoring; four key areas in mentoring- to provide instruction, emotional support, the men tor to serve as a role model etc.; attributes of a good mentor – being trustworthy, knowledgable, observant etc; and limitations of mentoring.
The panel discussion was held afterwards. The panelists included the presenter
(Prof. B. O. Adebesin), The Director of LUCRID (Dr. A. O. Dada) and the HOD of Computer Science (Dr. M. O. Adebiyi). The anchor was Dr. A. A. Inyinbor. It was an interesting interactive session on the issue of mentoring. Some of the things discussed were the requirements of a good mentor, how a mentee should go about addressing a wrong judgement from the mentor and how to restore a broken relationship with a mentor/mentee.
The Ag. HOD of the Department of Physical Sciences, Dr. S. O. Ikubanni, gave the closing remark while the Head of Programme of industrial chemistry, Dr. T. O. Abodunrin gave the appreciation.
Signed
Dr. A. C. Oladipo