Pictured above: Co-Chairs of this past fall's Tuck Women in Business Conference
There aren’t many places where you really see a high representation of women in the room. And there are even fewer places where women are encouraged to bring their full selves and share their wisdom. Coming from wealth management and the startup world, it was not unusual to be one of the few women in the room, especially one of the few Black women.
Then, I came to Tuck. As a Dartmouth undergraduate alumna, I knew that there were active initiatives to bring more diversity and women representation to campus. However, it was entirely different to experience it firsthand here at Tuck. When I arrived, I found myself surrounded by not just highly intelligent women as fellow students, but also by accomplished women faculty members and staff. These are women who revel in being smart and excelling in their careers and industries.
Women professors at Tuck aren’t just teaching the “soft” side of business, as important as those skills are—they are also destroying the societal notion that women are terrible at hard skills like mathematics and analysis. You can spend hours geeking out with Professor Lindsey Leininger about the analysis of health care systems or discussing social media impact and pathways with Professor Lauren Grewal. Just spend one day with Professor Leslie Robinson and you will find you can do accounting in both the United States and Europe.
Exhibiting hard skills doesn’t stop with women faculty. At Tuck, it is completely normal for female students to lead data analysis and programming, or receive offers in male-dominated fields like investment banking. In class, professors are just as likely to ask female students for quick numbers analysis as the male students.
“When you see and have access to women who have thrived by stepping into their intelligence and themselves, you realize you can too.”
I’m proud to be the programming and inclusion co-chair of the long-time Tuck Women in Business club, which exists to create community, share resources, and build skills to help all women become successful business leaders. Tuck WIB strives to create an equitable experience for all Tuckies and an environment where women at Tuck can thrive. We want Tuck women to be known for their unparalleled leadership. We support them in developing those qualities and skills through coffee chats, networking and events, faculty presentations, and more. Women in Business creates a foundational network of support for you to be the best version of you possible. The Tuck WIB network really seeks to reverse that societal pressure to dumb yourself down and helps quiet the societal whispers that you aren’t good enough because you are a woman.
When you see and have access to women who have thrived by stepping into their intelligence and themselves, you realize you can too.
Shows like The Bold Type, Girlfriends, and Living Single showcase women in high power industries who are surrounded by fellow supportive women. Women in Business at Tuck is where those stories begin. While the rest of the world may pressure women and girls to appear dumber than they are1, I’ve experienced two years of being in the company of leader-minded women who aren’t afraid to be fantastic and are thriving.
And now, so will I.
I want to ask you: Who do you think you can become when you are provided with the support to thrive, not just survive? Are you interested in continuing this discussion and learning more about Women at Tuck? Reach out to Tuck Women in Business.
Learn more about Cynthia Madu T’22 through our One Tuck, Many Voices story project.
1 University of Warwick. (2014, August 5). Girls feel they must 'play dumb' to please boys, study shows. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 27, 2022 from ScienceDaily.
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