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Shanaysia Sanders

July 5, 2023

Dr. Dupree

Reflection paper

Introduction

My name is Shanaysia Sanders, and I completed my 12-week internship at The Women’s

Center and LGBTQ+ Programs at Georgia College and State University. Prior to interning here, I

went to school here for two years and didn’t even know this place existed. I have been

downstairs to the cultural center, but only in my last semester as a senior. The first time that I

interacted with the Women’s Center would be when I interviewed with Ms. Melissa Gerrior for

this student internship. She is a program coordinator here. Also on staff is Shiloh. I’m not clear

what their title is. We have Kendra who isn’t on staff but has popped in more than once because

of her familiarity with the women’s center and LGBTQ+ programs. Jennifer Graham is the

director of the women’s center, meaning she is the staff that provides direction and coordination

to the women’s center. I met her when she was manning a table for the office of Diversity and

Inclusion at the student marketplace for freshmen.

Our doors are open to anyone on campus. Our clients would mainly be students, but we do

offer star allyship trainings to administration and staff. We provide a safe place on campus to

address all things gender and sexuality. We are also home to the B.R.A.V.E Project which teaches

bystander violence prevention. Our mission or purpose is that we want to focus on empowerment

and self-confidence through building community. We are here to support every student and any

sexual orientation as well as gender identity and expression.

Description of experience

My role as an intern was to keep the center ready for student use, answer the phones and

come up with ideas of programs or activities that could get more conversion in the center. The

rest of my tasks were individually produced by me. The best part of the internship would

definitely be the marketplace for upcoming freshmen. Interacting with the new students that are

just beginning their journey of college. Finding their place on campus at the women’s center and

LGBTQ+ programs was very fulfilling. I guess I wish I would’ve heard about this organization

and learned about what they actually do instead of thinking it was somewhere you went on

campus if you had “medical women problems” when I was a student.

When people’s faces, student, and parent both would light up at the sight of our stylishly

decorated table that would make me smile. The most memorable would be this elderly gentleman

who had to be about 70 years old, and he walked over smiling bright, saying that he and his

grandson were looking for this table, and even though he lost track of his grandson, once he

found him, they would promptly be back at our table. When they came back, we gave the spiel

about the LGBTQ+ programs. I could tell that they were transgender, so I began telling them

about the preferred name card, and the granddad said oh he has already had his name legally

changed. I wish the world was like this grandpa. Back in his day gender expression wasn’t a

well-known thing and is still taboo and unaccepted by many, but he used his pronouns correctly,

and his preferred name, and wanted to help his grandson find a community that would do the

same. We explained to them that we support, talk about and build leadership around all things

gender and sexuality. Another fun part of my internship was hand making the buttons/pins.

Learning what the different colors or symbols on the pins meant.

The part of the internship that I found to be most challenging was the lack of students the

whole semester. And by lack, I mean that there was not one student that came up here the entire

12-week semester. I did have one girl call and ask did we do blood tests or give out pregnancy

tests. I am used to being in the retail space every day and interacting with people in some

capacity or another. Another challenging part would be that no activities pushed by the women’s

center happens in the summer. That means my main focus was on the project that I created for

this class. I wish I could’ve done more for the center, not just for my grade.

Perception and evaluation about internship

The internship did not fully meet my personal expectations. I knew from the interview that

the center isn’t as busy in the summertime, but I wasn’t ready for no one to show up. I did expect

to learn about the LGBTQ+ community which I was grateful that I did. I got to talk about taboo

topics for society, like menstruation, sexuality and gender identity. And I also got to use my

creative mind to make art and outreach propaganda for the center, which I was looking forward

to. This organization was completely open to my ideas for my project and has even said that this

could be done when we have more foot traffic in the fall with new students.

My supervision was sufficient in giving me feedback on my project. Being able to bounce

my project ideas off her was nice. She is not the supervisor that walks around the office looming

over your shoulder. Some days I wouldn’t see her until she was walking out for lunch or going to

a meeting. An idea to improve this would be to do daily end of the day meetings, or a game plan

in the morning for how she wants the day to go. I wish that I could’ve joined in on the many

conferences that my site supervisor attended throughout this semester. I feel like I wasn’t given

any tasks that were for the center. I would not recommend this internship for students in the

summertime because the center has more projects in the fall. It’s isolating and if you don’t have a
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large enough or time-consuming project this will not be a good place for you. I would not want

this to be my work setting when I start my career. Not only because I’ve experienced it for this

internship, but I always knew that I wanted to be on the ground, in the field helping out. I do still

want to be involved in women empowerment and support, so that part will never change.

Internship preparedness

I was prepared efficiently academically for this placement at the women’s center and

LGBTQ+ programs at Georgia college. I do wonder what more I would’ve gotten out of this

internship had I taken women and gender studies. However, classes like community health and

health promotion program planning are areas that I feel confident in. These courses instilled the

determinants of health and how to get a program, in my case a project, off the ground. I also feel

confident in my ability to support the LGBTQ+ community because of classes such as human

sexuality and sex, gender, and sexology. I pulled a lot from my wellness class from my first year

here, especially for my project wellness for women. The model about people’s willingness to

change habits using the Transtheoretical model helped. We know that people will change in their

own time. It’s a process. My project was mainly to provide individuals with knowledge to make

better decisions to improve their wellness.

I think the school of health and human performance did a good job at preparing us for

teaching us the concepts. I think that besides the community service project from community

health and creating a business/organization from the ground up from methods of program

promotion were the only classed I truly pulled from for real life application. That could also be

just because of my choice of internship. Sexology and human sexuality were excellent for this

specific internship. Once the knowledge gained from my schooling has settled in my brain it’s

hard to pinpoint exactly where I’m pulling the information from.

Personal/professional insights/benefits

The internship has impacted my personal goals to remain an open-minded person who

continues to be open to learning about different cultures and people. To be an always consuming

learner. I appreciated all the books about women, race, gender, and sexuality. From children’s

books to the research texts. My ability to become a better ally for the LGBTQ+ community has

grown. Another benefit is personally being able to express my feminism and ideologies of

intersectionality and having the knowledge to back it up.

My professional growth I feel has grown tremendously. I know that Public Health by

definition is an interdisciplinary career, but I have really gained a string sense of professional

independence. Being able to take the reigns of this project, and see it grow as I put in more work

and effort everyday is a wonderful professional achievement. Outreaching to different

organizations and professionals to be apart of different portions of the project. I also have other

staff on campus that have a background or love for Yoga teaching Yoga. An organization called

Women’s Money Matters who were so gracious to participate in a zoom information session.

I know that people are just people and diversity is a vast creature in the sea of chaos. I gained

the knowledge that even though this is a 2-department organization, I don’t think either side gets

the support, visibility, and funding that it needs from whoever is in charge of that sort of thing.

Gender is a complex concept that students either need to talk about with like-minded individuals,

or individuals who have experienced what they have. Get advice from those whose own

experience rendered them eligible to give it out. That was evident when I was part of the student

interview panel for the new Chief Diversity Officer. I also heard during the student orientation

video/speech there was only a brief mention of the H.U.B where we are located, and it was only

the Women’s center and not LGBTQ+ programs. I have heard in Ms. Gerrior’s presentation of
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what the women’s center does, that the students have a say in what we do, and what activities

they want to do. I’ve learned that without services/organizations like the Women’s center and

LGBTQ+ programs some students wouldn’t have even stayed at GCSU. College is not only a

place for you to grow academically, but it should be a place where you feel welcomed no matter

who you are. Also, a place to build lifelong networking community and friends.

Conclusion

In conclusion, my time at the Women’s Center and LGBTQ+ programs were time well

spent. It was an adjustment because I didn’t have clear tasks or roles in the organization, but I let

my independence shine and I’m proud of the outcome of my project. I want people to take

progress over perfection from my wellness for women project. Know that all the slices of

wellness combine to give you overall a healthier life. It’s all a cycle. And in Public health we

know that there is more than one cause to a health outcome. Everything is connected, sometimes

by a web of things and not just a straight line. My project wellness for women is one that

provides you with concise and easy to follow activities, assessments, infographics and sometimes

just rewording already known information to look at it from a different vantage point. I will

never forget my time as an intern at the Women’s Center and LGBTQ+ Programs.