Every March, the University of Michigan and the U.S. celebrate Women’s History Month to honor the legacy of women throughout history and the ones that they continue to carve out today. The University began admitting women with Madelon Stockwell’s acceptance in February 1870, who was joined by 34 women in the fall of 1871. As of 2023, 53% of the University’s enrollment consisted of female students.
To commemorate Women’s History Month, The Michigan Daily spoke with undergraduate students to highlight their work on campus and discuss the importance of celebrating women’s achievements throughout history.
Julia Odhiambo
When Public Policy junior Julia Odhiambo was applying to the Ford School of Public Policy, she spoke with another student to learn more about the program. Odhiambo told The Daily the student informed her they were the only Black student in their cohort, which encouraged Odhiambo to look for student organizations for Black students that she could connect with within the Public Policy School.
“I really don’t see a lot of people that look like me,” Odhiambo said. “When I got into (the Public Policy School), I noticed there were five Black people in my cohort out of the 80, so I was really happy. But I just felt like there was still a disconnect, because there’s (about) 60 Black student organizations on campus … but none of them were public policy focused.”
Odhiambo decided to create a space for Black undergraduate students like herself to explore public policy: the Black Undergraduate Public Policy Society, an organization that supports Black undergraduate students interested in careers in policy making and other related fields.
“I founded this organization because … a lot of these issues affect everybody, regardless of their background,” Odhiambo said. “But I felt like Black identity should be able to have these conversations in these spaces, so I founded this organization to meet people where they’re at.”
Beyond her studies and BUPPS, Odhiambo engages in policy through organizations such as Central Student Government and the Student Advisory Board to the Vice President of Student Life. She is also a recipient of the 2025 Central Campus Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Spirit Award, which is awarded to students who demonstrate commitment to inclusivity and justice.
Odhiambo said she is motivated by her desire to spread awareness about public policy to the community..
“(Diverse, equity and inclusion), that’s one thing that I always leaned on, because I feel a sense of belonging,” Odhiambo said. “Those are policy issues that are passed to make sure that everybody, regardless of their race, is not treated unfairly. That’s what really got me involved in public policy, and I wanted to bring that to our campus.”
Odhiambo said she believes women achieve and provide support for so much, making it crucial for people to celebrate these accomplishments.
“I feel like women are always overlooked … and I feel like they should be celebrated because we women do such amazing work,” Odhiambo said.
Kaamaakshi Ati
Engineering sophomore Kaamaakshi Ati began her journey in computer science with a middle school programming class. Encouraged to take the class by her father who was a computer programmer himself, Ati found herself in a room of almost 40 students — as one of two women in the class. In an interview with The Daily, Ati said she wanted to switch out of the class due to the lack of other female students, but her father persuaded her to stay.
“I actually hated it,” Ati said. “However, he was like, ‘Give it a shot.’ He would give me coding exercises at home and I started to really enjoy it. There was always just something very satisfying to me about writing a program and getting it to do exactly what you want.”
At the University, Ati is the public relations director of the Society of Women Engineers, an organization dedicated to creating an inclusive and supportive environment for everyone to succeed in engineering-related fields and beyond.
Ati said although SWE is a women-focused organization, she doesn’t think of it necessarily as a women’s exclusive organization. Rather, SWE serves as a community where she can be with others with similar goals and interests who can support each other.
“It just feels very natural, and it feels like any other group,” Ati said. “It’s really nice to go there and just know that these are fellow engineers who all understand what you’re going through.”
As of fall 2024, 32% of undergraduate students at the College of Engineering identify as female. Ati said although she has seen more female students in her classes, the University and society as a whole must continue working on closing the gender gap.
“I feel like (the University) has been doing a good job of working on decreasing the gender disparity because I’ve met a lot of girls in my engineering classes, and I’ve made really meaningful connections and friendships,” Ati said. “But I think it’s absolutely something that’s essential for us to work on as a society because everybody has meaningful contributions to make.”
Ati said she feels it is important to keep reflecting on how communities are treated and continue working towards a better future for all.
“In terms of women and how society treats them, I think it’s important to look at how we treat different communities,” Ati said. “Even though we’ve come a long way, there’s still a lot of things we can continue to do to make life better for everyone. So I think it’s important to still recognize and be actively looking at how we’re treating people and how their lives are impacted by the decisions we’re making.”
Emma Vitet
Taubman junior Emma Vitet is the president of the Urban Technology Student Organization, an organization dedicated to spreading awareness to students about the emerging field of urban technology. Vitet told The Daily she chose to major in urban technology, one of Taubman College’s newest academic programs, because it aligned with her goals better than urban planning.
“I picked urban tech because I felt like it was a lot more innovative and forward-thinking than traditional urban planning,” Vitet said. “I felt like it could make a lot more change than urban planning would so I went with that, and it turned out to be very true, and I’m happy about it.”
Vitet said she sees how gender could play a role in urban planning and technology, such as when people navigate cities.
“I think it’s really interesting to look at specifically how women move in cities (which) is very different from how men move in cities, and especially like people that don’t fit into the binary,” Vitet said. “How do you design for those people who are not men and (heteronormative), and how do they move around and experience places that are often associated with danger and like uncertainty in big cities?”
Vitet said empathy is crucial in urban planning because these plans need to be made with everyone in mind.
“If you’re designing something in a city that everybody’s going to use like women, men, children (and) seniors, you have to think of all those possibilities,” Vitet said. “And oftentimes you have to redesign. You’re going to test it with users, and you’re going to realize, ‘Oh, I made some assumptions about somebody, and I have to go back and fix a lot of that.’”
Vitet said although she understands why Women’s History Month exists, she believes that these monthly celebrations of underrepresented communities should be a part of an institution’s core values year-round.
“This month, this is something you can talk about and I think that’s useful,” Vitet said. “But in academia, we talk about these things all the time, and we talk and learn about feminist and Queer theory, and other things all the time. So it’s like, why not just incorporate that in the foundations of what Taubman College is or what (the University) is?”
Daily News Contributor Eilene Koo can be reached at ekoo@umich.edu.
The post Celebrating Women’s History Month: Student Spotlights appeared first on The Michigan Daily.
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