Student organization celebrates five years on campus with annual dinner.
Adviser Darla Holley-Holmens (center) with past and present student leadership of Cal U Women United at a five-year anniversary celebration April 27 at the Convocation Center.
Looking out over a full, festive room at the Convocation Center, guest speaker Dr. Lisa McBride was bursting with pride.
“I saw this room 5 years ago, in my dreams,” she said to the audience of students and staff who had gathered April 27 to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Cal U Women United, a student organization that supports the success of women of color at the University.
“It was my goal to champion inclusive excellence at Cal U, to recruit and retain women of color,” she said. “We need to see ‘us’ on university campuses, to see our worth, our boundless potential.”
To that end, McBride — the University’s former assistant to the President for equal employment and educational opportunity — worked with Darla Holley-Holmes, a staff member in the Department of Art and Languages, to create Cal U Women United.
Holley-Holmes has been the adviser to Cal U Women United since it was founded to develop academic skills, social awareness, civic engagement, personal responsibility, leadership abilities and healthy relationships.
“Women of color need a place to support each other,” Holley-Holmes said. “We meet every week, and it’s a blessing to me. It has made me a better woman, and I stand in awe of all of you,” she told members.
“You didn’t have to come back to be with us here tonight,” she said to McBride, “but we are better off for it. You made a change that’s still about the students.”
In her honor, the members of Cal U Women United established the Darla Holley-Holmes Book Scholarship, to be given to a member of the organization with at least a 2.5 grade-point average to purchase books and other supplies. Monique Salmond, Cal U Women United’s new treasurer, was the first recipient.
McBride encouraged the women to continue to support one another and to lend a hand to others.
“Gather outside of this room often,” she said. “Come together to plot a way forward. Service is the rent we pay for living. We are all servant-leaders.
“I am so proud to be among you.”