Women For Others: Celebrating Women In The Xavier University Community
Mar 11, 2022
March marks Women's History Month, designated to recognize and honor the vital role of women in American history.
Xavier University proudly celebrates the many women who serve as important pillars in the Xavier community.
Throughout the month, Xavier will be featuring several respected leaders and members of the Xavier community — getting insight into their career paths, as they share stories about the women who've inspired them and give practical advice for young women today.
Stay tuned weekly for updates in Today at Xavier and on Xavier.edu.
Name: Jenni Dramis
Title: Associate Vice President & Chief Human Resources Officer
First Year at Xavier: 2018
How did you come to arrive in your position?
“I began my career in Human Resources more than twenty years ago and quickly realized the various HR disciplines that have kept my interest in the profession. It’s been a great journey and along the way I’ve felt that the work I do impacts people and organizations for the better. In 2018, I joined Xavier as the Director of Benefits and Compensation and became the Associate Vice President and CHRO in July 2021.”
What drew you to work at Xavier?
“I was drawn to Xavier because of our mission and because of my desire to be part of a community. The mission aligns with my personal values and is an extension of my work in HR. Universities guide students to find their passions and places in the world. It's an honor to be a small part of the bigger picture.”
Who is a woman you’ve always looked up to and why?
“While there are many women who have been influential in my life, it really starts at home with my mother. My mother is a retired secondary education teacher and is often still recognized by former students who share how they enjoyed her class. She was also very active in our community and church and recently, she and my father recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. I’m grateful for her example that women can be successful mothers, wives and still have careers.”
Xavier has only had women on campus since Oct. 1, 1969. What is your experience like as a woman at Xavier?
“As part of Generation X, also known as the ‘latchkey’ generation, I don’t feel that my experience as a female at Xavier is different from anywhere else I have worked. Women in the workplace has been a norm in my lifetime, although I have been able to see the progression of women in leadership roles at Xavier. However, it is really the earlier generations that successfully demonstrated the value women bring to the workforce. Now, it is our turn to continue this work with continued focus on awareness and accountability of equal rights in the workplace.”
What advice do you have for women at Xavier, or any other university right now?
“Don’t be afraid to lean in to new opportunities and know there is no one-size-fits-all solution. There is no magic formula of how to juggle and manage work and private life, but I have learned that it depends on dozens of factors which sometimes can and sometimes can’t be controlled. Learn to adapt and to be present where you are, and never fall into the trap of feeling like you’re ‘not enough.’”
Name: Karen Eutsler
Title: Teaching Professor, Williams College of Business
First Year at Xavier: 2006
What brought you to Xavier and how did you arrive at your current position?
"When I met my husband, before he was my husband, he was coming here to get his MBA. I'm a pretty competitive person, and there is no way I was going to let him have a degree I didn’t have. And so he and I overlapped here at Xavier for one semester. I was in the business world at the time, so an MBA was definitely going to help my career, and life was great.
My last semester here before I graduated, I took a professional selling class. I thought that this was going to be a great class because I already did it and was successful. It happened to be one of those classes that just jelled where all the students got along and the professor was great and we'd go to happy hour after class and spent another hour together even after the two and a half hours we’d been together.
And at the end of the class, I actually approached my professor, Ginger Rothschild, and I asked, ‘How do you do this? I'm in business; how do you teach business?’ Because my undergraduate degree was in secondary education, so I had four years of formal training on how to be a teacher, but I had pursued business instead. She said, ‘you become an adjunct professor.”
(It just so happened a spot became available to teach undergraduate professional selling at Xavier), so I graduated in May, and in August, I came and started teaching at Xavier. I, for 10 years, was an adjunct here while I was working in sales and marketing full time in the corporate world. Six years ago, I was in a transition point and was looking for something different and it had gotten to the point that my part-time job of adjuncting was the day that I loved the most. Even though it was the longest work day, it was the most invigorating. I approached Dean Tom Hayes, and through some weird circumstances, the timing hit just right that they had an open position for a visiting faculty member, and so I came on full time. I still teach that same professional selling class. So if somebody has taken professional selling in the last 16 years, it's been from me.”
Who is a woman who made a profound impact on your life?
“My answer is my mom. What my mom did that was quite influential … I’m the oldest of three, and she stayed at home with us for a couple years, and then she went back to work. Seeing her balance being a working professional and still taking care of us and still coming to our games and still being my Girl Scout leader, she just she had it all handled.
She was my room mom and then when I graduated at grade school, she was my brother's room mom, and so on. There was more than one year that she was the room mom of a class that she didn't even have a kid in because no other parents stepped up and she didn't want that class to, for example, not have a Valentine's Day party. I feel like she's very giving of her time and energy, and she wants the best for people. To me, she definitely models a person who has work and life balanced and truly puts other people ahead of herself, which are qualities I hope to emulate.”
What about a woman on campus who has been especially inspiring or impactful?
"Obviously, we have a lot of really wonderful coworkers here at Xavier, but two in particular stand out. One is in my department: Dr. Ashley Stadler Blank. What Ashley does: she's a great teacher and she's very willing to share her practices, and she wants feedback. She's got a great rapport with the students, but she's also that person in the department that sends the ‘happy birthday.’ You know, a ‘happy birthday to Sudipta,’ email and lets the whole department know.
She ran a campaign here in the Williams College of Business to meet the people in your neighborhood just to try to bring more camaraderie between different departments who might not otherwise work together or have projects that overlap or things like that. She's just literally everything you want in a coworker. She's responsible, she's reliable, she's friendly. From that standpoint, she shows a lot of qualities that I hope that I have and that I can strengthen.
Then the other one would be Dr. Rashmi Assudani. Rashmi actually was here in my college and she teaches in the Management and Entrepreneurship Department and she is now the Associate Provost. What I admire about her is she has had lots of personal and professional challenges, and she just pushes through all of them. She's just relentless in her pursuit of getting better and passing on knowledge. She even spent a year down at the University of Louisville and helped them with their strategic planning.
She just had so many cool experiences and I think that she brings great leadership. Every time she speaks publicly, I'm like, ‘I wish I sounded as smooth as she does.’ It's like liquid gold that comes out of her mouth. She's just so polished in experience. I aspire to be more like her.”
How would you describe your experience as a woman at Xavier?
"I would say what's notable is that it hasn't been notable. I feel that I'm respected and treated just the same as every other person here, regardless of gender. I feel like I'm appreciated. I feel that my voice is heard, and I've never felt hesitant about sharing my views or sharing my experiences. I think part of it is just that my gender, which is part of my identity, obviously, it's just one thing.
People respect me, I feel, as a whole person, me the person and me the professional. Obviously, I recognize that I'm a woman, but I don't feel like it's helped or hindered me either way because people see me as me.”
What advice do you have for young women here at Xavier or women college students in general?
"Get a mentor. You need somebody with whom you can share the things that you're nervous about. Somebody who's going to cheerlead you on, somebody who's going to share their experience.
Certainly, a family member can do that, but I think it’s important to find somebody that's outside of your family, maybe in your industry, or a professor or faculty member or staff member or something like that, who can give you guidance and be very real with you, who will call you out when you need it, because I think getting that is just as important as telling you the good things that you're doing. It will help challenge you to get better. Finding somebody who will let you be vulnerable and will give you candid, honest feedback, good and bad, I think it's very important.”
Name: Molly Fender
Title: VP of Human Resources at Monti, Inc.
First Year at Xavier: 2018
How did you come to arrive in your current position?
"After an internship with Coca-Cola in Cairo, Egypt, I returned home to Cincinnati in 2010. My father hired me to work at the family business, Monti, Inc., while looking for a job in public relations — the field in which I received my undergraduate degree. My career started in the assembly department and then as a machine operator learning how to program CNC machines. The business was growing rapidly as did the need for a human resources department.
In 2011, I enrolled in HR Management courses at Employers Resource Association, and I established an HR Department at Monti. From writing the employee handbook to transitioning payroll from a phone-in to a paperless process, I developed policies and procedures to help build structure and mitigate risk. In 2012, I was certified as a professional in human resources. Once the HR department was functional, I focused on tackling strategic workforce issues. Presently, I am building my team to offload day-to-day HR tasks to allow more time for me to focus on the business."
What drew you to study at Xavier?
"Selecting Xavier was an easy choice. Monti’s COO, Jay Binder, connected me with Jen Bush, who was a Xavier EMBA graduate herself. The 18-month program fit perfectly into my hectic life as a wife, mother, and executive of a fast-paced, growing manufacturer. It’s important for women to support other women, but it is equally important for women to seek out male allies to help lessen the burden of battling routine workplace sexism, such as misogynist humor and microaggressions. I’m lucky to have many male allies at Monti – from my husband and family to the guys on the shop floor."
Who is a woman you’ve always looked up to and why?
"I am part of an all-female executive round table through the Goering Center for Family and Private Business and I look up to each of them. We are all daughters, wives, shareholders, and leaders in our family businesses and our mutual support and encouragement make us all stronger. We meet monthly, allowing us a safe space to be vulnerable. When I leave those meetings, I come out stronger and ready to lead, particularly in a male-dominated industry like manufacturing."
Tell us about a woman on campus who inspired or impacted you in a big way?
"Kim Saylor, one of two women in our EMBA cohort. She took us all under her wing in one way or another – a pep-talk, help with an assignment, a listening ear, a laugh. Boy, did we laugh. The EMBA program is difficult and Kim was a source of solace when the going got tough. She has exceptional marketing and business development knowledge, a weakness of mine, and I learned a lot from her during our time at Xavier."
What advice do you have for women at Xavier, or any other University right now?
"Form a personal network of people to advise you on different aspects of success. Don’t look for all of your career advice in one person and ensure your group of advisors is diverse in thought and experience. The Magnificent Seven, the 2019 XU EMBA cohort, all have seats on my personal advisory board."