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Equal Housing Lender. Berkshire Bank is a Massachusetts chartered bank. Rev. 8/22 help to figure out how to remove barriers. What will be the institute's advocacy role? One of the other activities is what I am calling the executive work groups. We want to be able to have — on (the topic of ) equal pay, for example — a work group that looks at that and looks at solutions, and talks to legislators and to business owners. We want a work group that talks about women coming back into the workforce aer a break, perhaps aer having children. ere is a bias against their skills sometimes. I have to admit, I am very ignorant of this — I thought this was all done and people didn't think like this anymore, but apparently they still do. How do we help women position themselves, and how do we help get rid of the stigma? Will the institute offer role-playing? Such as for salary negotiations? Absolutely. Part of our thing is looking at professional development. Pay should be based upon your skills and talents. How do you negotiate in these difficult situations? What do you say? And how do you do it in such a way that you are coming across in a positive light? You have been in meetings and situations where the men will just talk over everything. Women tend to be more polite and take their turn. And so, sometimes the women are perceived as not being smart enough, or not having the knowledge, or whatever. And when they try to push their way in, they are just 'bitchy.' So, how do you project yourself as being assertive, without being aggressive, so you can get things done, and you are looked at as somebody who has something to bring to the table? Women oen apologize for having an "Women often apologize for having an opinion. … Don't ask permission to have an opinion, and don't apologize for having an opinion." Alisa Hunt, Assistant Dean, Graduate Studies The Malcolm Baldrige School of Business at Post University opinion. You'll be in a meeting, someone will say something, and a female will say, 'I'm sorry, but I think this ….' Well, why are you sorry? Don't ask permission to have an opinion, and don't apologize for having an opinion. But that is something that women very oen do. And in a business setting, that will make a perception of you not being as knowledgeable or as strong. ose are some of the professional development and the role playing things we will work on. Who will this be open to? We hope to open this up not only to students on our main campus, but to our larger community of online students as well. And our alumni, and we don't know where it goes from there. at's where we are starting. What is the timeline for starting it? ere is a launch in August we are going to be doing — a launch of a scholarship and the institute. Post University has a partnership with Mohegan Sun, and the Connecticut Sun (basketball team), and we're looking to do a scholarship named aer (Connecticut Sun President) Jen Rizzotti coming through the Institute for Women in Business. We will really be kicking off the big part of it once the school year starts up again. at's when we will be pushing it with our students and pulling together and making that happen. How many faculty are devoted to it? At this point, the business school's female faculty are the ones starting it. ere are four of us altogether. We put together an advisory board that includes people from all over the world. We have tried to make it more global. We have somebody from Switzerland, somebody from Germany, a whole slew of people. We picked alumni, business women, to get their input on what we should do and how we should do it. We had our first meeting with them a month or so ago, and it was amazing the ideas and feedback they gave us. We are putting this timeline together based on their feedback. is is an absolutely amazing group to kick it off with. What is the ultimate goal? We want to encourage and inspire women and young girls to be able to come and make a difference and to claim their space. I am looking forward to the day when I'm not reading in the paper that women are still only being paid a certain number of cents to the dollar compared to men. n

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