Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver Center for the Advancement of Women in Communication launches an affiliate at Stephens College

The Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver Center for the Advancement of Women in Communication is expanding its reach nationwide.

In November, the Kopenhaver Center announced its first satellite center at Rowan University’s Ric Edelman College of Communication & Creative Arts in New Jersey.

Now, just three months later, the Kopenhaver Center is launching its second affiliate satellite center at Stephens College in Missouri.

“We are excited about the inauguration of the Kopenhaver Center at Stephens College,” says Dean Emeritus  Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver. “This partnership enables us to expand the work and the reach of the center across the country and to join with the folks at Stephens to enrich educational opportunities at both institutions. It also provides possibilities for FIU students to join Stephens students for future events.”

As the second-oldest women’s college in the United States, Stephens shares the center’s mission to empower women as leaders in communication and to uphold diversity and inclusion in communication practice and research.

The Kopenhaver Center at Stephens College will provide access to guest speakers, networking events, virtual workshops and training centered around advancing women in the field of communications, which their director hopes will positively impact female leadership and career advancement.

“The College’s new partnership with the Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver Center is opening doors and creating connections between Stephens and some of the most powerful women in the media/communications industry,” says Dianne Lynch, president of Stephens College. “These connections include Dianne Festa, a senior vice president of NBC Universal; Mindy Marques Gonzalez, vice president and executive editor at Simon & Schuster; Marisabel Munoz, vice president of communications for Major League Soccer; and Susan Goldberg, editor-in-chief of National Geographic.”

“I’m excited for the Stephens community to learn from and network with high profile women in the communications field,” says Aurola Alfaro, inaugural director of The Agency and the Kopenhaver Center at Stephens College. “I envision our students pursuing competitive internships with confidence and landing that first job they have been working for.”

To celebrate the launch of the satellite center at Stephens College, Daniella Zalcman led a virtual workshop, “Through the Lens: Elevate Your Voice as a Visual Storyteller” via Zoom.

Zalcman is a multiple grantee of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, a fellow with the International Women’s Media Foundation, a National Geographic Society grantee and the founder of Women Photograph.

The Kopenhaver Center at FIU was established in 2013 by Kopenhaver as a pioneering site for the advancement of women in the field of communication. For more than three decades, she has been a tireless advocate for women in communication and envisions the center to lead the way for future generations of communicators, professionals and scholars.

Since its inception, the Kopenhaver Center has been serving women nationally and internationally. Its Women Faculty Moving Forward workshop, hosted every summer, has had helped 250 women from nearly 200 colleges around the world move forward in their careers through mentoring, networking and preparing for leadership positions.