Phenomenal Wom*n make strides in harassment research and other topics

DYLAN HEMBROUGH reporter

Every year for Women’s History Month at SIUE, a few lucky women are awarded in the Phenomenal Wom*n Awards, a luncheon in which women who have been nominated by colleagues for selfless actions are recognized and awarded for said accomplishments.

Candi Johnson works as a program coordinator for the STEM center and has been nominated before for this award.

“It’s an award that is given to women of the university that have a positive contribution to our community, so colleagues across campus can nominate women that they think are deserving of the award,” Johnson said. “A lot of them have done something to support a specific group in the community, for instance, a marginalized group that could use extra support or resources, so it’s honoring the work that they do outside of themselves to contribute to the community.”

Johnson said she was equal parts surprised and honored when she was asked to be the keynote speaker for this year’s Phenomenal Wom*n Awards. In her speech, Johnson said she plans to touch on the historical trend that women are supposed to be quiet and reserved.

“Women are traditionally encouraged to be modest and polite and quiet, and not really allow ourselves to openly be proud of our accomplishments,” Johnson said. “Sometimes that’s seen as selfish or conceited, so I would really like to celebrate the fact that we are celebrating women. It’s okay to be proud of what we do and to share that with each other, and just to celebrate all of our accomplishments and accolades.”

Johnson said that, coincidentally, she also nominated her coworker, Carol Colaninno. Colaninno is a research associate professor with the STEM center.

“Carol is one of the hardest workers I know,” Johnson said. “She’s had family matters to deal with over the past year, so [she] balances that and still directs so many of our projects, and [she’s] such a pleasant person to be around too … what would we do without her?”

Colaninno said her nomination was likely due to her research on women in the scientific field.

“It felt great to be recognized for a lot of the work that I do,” Colaninno said. “My research focuses primarily on women and harassment they experience doing scientific research, so it’s nice to have that recognition that I’m doing something significant that contributes to promoting spaces where women are included.”

Colaninno also said the awards were a great way for other women in the SIU system to hear about and be in- spired by the work of these great women.

“Hearing those stories is always inspiring and lets other people know that we’re not alone in trying to make a workspace that promotes diversity, equity and inclusion,” Colaninno said.

Colaninno said much of the harassment women experience in academic settings is tied to barriers that prevent women from excelling in their talents.

“Our student evaluations tend to be lower, because students evaluate us lower than our male counterparts, and those evaluations go into our promotions,” Colaninno said. “Some students have an implicit bias they’re probably completely unaware of … they just don’t perceive that a woman should be teaching those things.”

Emily Milano, president of the disability awareness group New Horizons, said she was asked to read off some of the nominations this year.

“As I was reading through these nominations … we’re really seeing how much these women mean for campus and how much of a difference they’re making,” Milano said. “And a lot of times, these people aren’t doing these things for recognition … we definitely think that it’s worth recognizing these women for these amazing things they’re doing on campus, because they are really doing amazing things.”

Milano, who also works for the Inclusive Excellence, Education and Development Hub, also said this event serves both to recognize the accomplishments of women in the SIU system, as well as to inspire others to affect positive change in their communities.

“I’m just astounded by how many awesome people we have on campus and that we’re giving them the opportunity to be recognized for their actions,” Milano said. “It’s inspiring to be able to say, ‘This person did this, this and this,’ so I can do that too.”

Johnson said that, though women have made monumen- tal strides in terms of achieving equality, there is still a lot of work to be done, especially in university environments.

“I guess all I could add is I really appreciate this event, because even though our culture and society has had so much progress with equalizing and recognizing diversity and being inclusive, it is still difficult to be a woman in a university setting,” Johnson said. “[There are] still a lot of statistics against us. Women really do need to be encouraged and uplifted [and] protect our mental health and self-esteem along the way.”

Holly’s House of Hope clients shine in ‘An Evening of Hope Gala’ fashion show

CAMELA SHARP reporter

Local nonprofit Holly’s House of Hope worked with professor Sarah VanSlette’s applied communications senior class for a fundraiser that took place on March 18th at the Fox Creek Golf Course in Edwardsville.

Holly’s House of Hope was a non-profit organization founded by Tammy and Eric Wrobbel. Valerie Furlong, senior, said that the focus of this event was to network with other businesses to get more job opportunities for their clients who are special needs adults.

“It’s basically to promote Holly’s House of Hope and their mission and to promote networking with local businesses for them, since their clients can have apprenticeships working with them,” Furlong said.

Makenna Grohmann, senior applied communication studies major, said that networking at this event was important for trying to give the young adults of Holly’s House of Hope more opportunities to be hired for the jobs they want.

“Their clients are special needs young adults,” Grohmann said. “Early 20s typically. And they’re all out of high school, so they don’t have the same resources that you get whenever you’re in public school. So they are reaching out to local businesses, asking if they would be willing to hire those kids, and they do the work at this consignment shop and build those skills, in order to work at a place that they want to work at.”

At the event, the main focus was the fashion show, where the models were all Holly’s House of Hope clients. Furlong said that the models picked out their own outfits.

“So the main event in the event is the fashion show and so the clients will be walking,” Furlong said. “They picked out their outfits since it’s a consignment shop it’s thrifted formal. It doesn’t have to be formal. Whatever they feel comfortable in, they picked. And the ‘Without Limits Dance Company,’ which Holly is a member of, will also be walking as models.”

Furlong said the intended guests were the local businesses that could provide apprenticeships, the community, and anyone wanting to better understand the mission of Holly’s House of Hope.

“We invited the general public,” Furlong said. “So just whoever would like to learn about a Holly’s House of Hope’s mission and again. With the apprenticeships, anybody that would be interested in providing that.”

Eric Wrobbel said that Holly’s House of Hope has a lot of supporters through different establishments like banks and churches.

“Bradford Bank has been very supportive,” Wrobbel said. “Highland is a nice tight-knit community and we are part of the Chamber of Commerce, so we get a lot of support from Highland Chamber members and stuff. Some of the local churches, too. I know quite a few people from the church are coming.”

Guests were just expected to bring themselves and money to donate.

Wrobbel said that since their 5k fundraising event last year, they chose to go in another direction that they figured was better for the clients.

“Last year we did a 5K,” Wrobbel said. “This is only the third year that we’ve been in existence. My hope is that going forward we do this again and I think as a group we all think that the gala is a great idea and we hope that we can succeed and replicate this one going forward. The 5K was successful, but our clients are not a group that are really all about running. We wanted something that our clients could participate in more directly and so the team here came up with this idea of a fashion show because we run a clothing store.”

Furlong said that the raffle would be online, so everyone didn’t need to show up in person. They could just participate in the raffle.

“It’s on Rally Up and it has donated items from all around,” Furlong said. “There’s a grill from Lowe’s, there’s a lot of things… On the Rally Up site, you don’t have to be present to win any of those items, so you can buy entries for things on the raffle. You don’t have to be at the event to win. There is a link to donate on the Rally Up site, and you can also go to the Holly’s House of Hope website to donate and on the EventBrite.”

Wrobbel said that this event is one of many that are relatable to other senior projects.

“This is one of a number of similar kinds of senior project classes going on right now,” Wrobbel said. “I’m just very lucky that a group chose us so it just happened to work out that since I’m connected to the university but we work with lots of other groups in the community and have been doing this for years and it’s always a great way for our students to kind of show off what they’re good at. The whole point of the senior project is to give students a chance to kind of pull everything that they’ve learned together and actually do something tangible with it.”

For more information, visit the Holly’s House of Hope website.

With the cold weather staying past its welcome, The Alestle staff took it upon themselves to find the best bowl of delicious carbs and cheese. Finding the best bowl of pasta is no easy task, but following a few simple guidelines of taste, appearance and price we rated seven local restaurants, from lower priced one in Edwardsville to some fancier ones on The Hill in St. Louis.

I Rating Graphics and Header by Thea Weltzin

Peel Wood Fired Pizza’s wagyu pasta is pretty pristine

BRUCE DARNELL sports editor

With good taste and a reasonable price for the amount of food, their pasta is definitely worth a try.

The last time I went to Peel Wood Fired Pizza in Edwardsville, I had wild mushroom soup, which was not at all worth getting for any reason.

The atmosphere of the building was still as cold as it was last time, though, since I came later in the evening, there were more people in the restaurant, which made the environment seem more lively.

This time, I got wagyu bolognese pasta, which was served in a giant bowl. It also came with two pieces of long triangle bread with cheese on top, although this didn’t add much to the meal for me and I ended up only eating one of them. The sauce, meat and noodles were great. The appearance was appealing, too. The price was a bit expensive for just one item, but the portion size made it worthwhile. In all, if you go to Peel for anything other than pizza, getting their pasta is certainly not a bad alternative.