Is there anything girls can’t do? The American Association of University Women-Las Cruces (AAUW-LC) and Doña Ana Community College (DACC) have the answer for you. Girls Can! is the annual career exploration conference for 6th grade girls that demonstrates the possibilities available using education to further one's career path. The conference will be held at 8 a.m., Saturday, March 1, at the Student Resources Building, DAEM, DACC East Mesa Campus, 2800 Sonoma Ranch Blvd, Las Cruces.
This year the event will feature 25 career topics spanning the fields of arts & entertainment, health & medicine, first responders & law enforcers, as well as science & engineering. The event provides each participant three one-hour, hands-on workshops provided by professional women in the area. There are also bilingual workshops for the girls' parents and guardians that cover college options, financial strategies, and the advantages of higher education.
“My personal belief is that this is maybe one of the most important things we do in our community, because it builds our future,” said this year’s event coordinator Patricia Johnson. “That future is, in this case, to inspire a large group of students to think about what they can do to contribute to our society in a meaningful way.”
This philosophy is one that has never wavered since the AAUW-LC founded this program 29 years ago. Though she was not present at the beginning, Johnson is proud of the work Girls Can! has done and continues to do in the community.
“The program has really grown over the years,” she said. “This year we have more students preregistered than we have ever had, close to 400 girls. I started with this program in 2017 and we felt really good about the program because we had 200 girls registered. The growth has been phenomenal.”
According to Johnson, the program has really blossomed since 2017. That was the year the program moved from Lynn Middle School to the Doña Ana Community College. Introducing the girls to the halls of higher learning appeared to really send the message home. She credits two strong women for that upward momentum: Stephanie Hofacket and DACC president Monica Torres.
“Stephanie is a district administrator who in 2017 was in charge of the science teachers in the middle schools,” Johnson explains. “She decided that it would be a good idea if she had the science teachers be the liaisons to Girls Can! This greatly increased the number of students who signed up. For the first time, we had more than a hundred kids register. She is really the key to making this program successful in the Las Cruces schools.”
Torres, she said, “totally embraced the program. She has allowed Girls Can! to be on the campus for no cost to AAUW. If we had to pay for the facilities, it would be prohibitive. That contribution is a huge one. She deserves a lot of credit, too, for making this program so successful.”
That success can be measured not only in attendance, but also in long lasting impressions on the girls who have taken part in the program. Johnson relates a story about a young woman – an engineer at NMSU – who attended one of the organization’s monthly meetings.
“She specifically mentioned her experiences at Girls Can! as allowing the girls to think they could have careers beyond what they thought was available to them,” Jonhson said. “It opened up her world. She said at that time she was intimidated by mathematics. She never even thought about working outside of a very narrow group of careers. Attending Girls Can! allowed her to see that there were other possibilities.”
The 6th grade girls in every middle school in Doña Ana County have been invited to participate in this year’s event, and efforts have been made to reach home-schooled students. About 400 girls and 100 parents are expected to participate. The event is staffed with about 100 volunteers who are primarily AAUW members and NMSU students. Girls Can! is supported financially by AAUW members as well as local businesses and organizations.
For additional information about Girls Can!, contact Pat Johnson at 732-740-0463 or ohnsonjatp@gmail.com.
