7.1: Girls Rule, Boys Drool!

I am the president of a fairly small community within the ILR School, the ILR Women’s Caucus. We are a group that was created to support our fellow ILR women classmates and the Ithaca community. Some of the events we have include raising money for the Ithaca Breast Cancer Alliance’s (IBCA) annual walk-a-thon with a bake sale (see picture above), participating in the IBCA walk-a-thon (see picture above), participating as one of the teams in Cornell’s “Into the Streets” day, holding a personal financial planning workshop, and having an ILR Women Faculty mixer. Besides for our FtF events, we also meet in an ILR classroom every week on Thursdays at 5pm. With the recent increase in internet capabilities, just this year the ILR Women’s Caucus was affected by CMC. We now have an official listserv, ilr_womens_caucus-l@cornell.edu, a Facebook group, and a Google calendar. The ILR Women’s Caucus is stronger than ever as it is now affected by both offline (FtF meetings and events) and online (listserv, Facebook, Google) synergies.

Our online community was not only created to keep up with the internet community trend but also for members to stay informed who may not able to attend every meeting and/or event. The listserv was seen as an important facet for our group as email is currently the most efficient way of relaying large amounts of information to a large group or community. We use this listserv to send out meeting reminders and summaries of every meeting, upcoming deadlines for RSVPing to events, and information on events members may hear about on campus that relate to our group’s purpose. With the growing popularity of Facebook, a Facebook group was created. It’s purpose is to identify who is in the group and those that are on the executive board, who to contact, a link to our calendar, and a group photos section for members to upload, tag, and share. Our Google calendar was created and is continually updated as another way for all members to keep track of upcoming events’ date, location and time. CMC has provided our actors, or members, with strong ties as everyone has access to the same information and resources (listserv, Facebook, Google) and has frequent interaction with the help of the listserv.

Based on our members’ common interest in the group’s purpose, countless FtF interactions, and accessibility of information in CMC, the ILR Women’s Caucus can be categorized as Gemeinschaft with high social capital. The common language and identity associated within my community is demonstrated with our several CMC information references. For instance, photos that are uploaded onto our Facebook group do not need to have titles stating where they were taken and what the activity’s purpose was because members already know this information (also categorical common ground). For non-members viewing our site, there may be some confusion with the location and purpose of each photo. The Facebook group also demonstrates a utopic view by showing the women who are connected to this common interest and displaying some of our social events with photos and a link to our Google calendar.

Additionally, social capital is present because there is social network (bonding with participation in events and meetings), common ground (members have a shared focus and commitment), and reciprocity (members have the ability to send out information to listserv about other events on campus) within our egocentric network. Effects are realized when it is mobilized to recruiters with the flow of information amongst people within the group to outside sources for potential positions, the influence the ties have on recruiters when affiliation is seen on their resume, and the reputation or social credential actors gain when they are associated with an executive board position within our community.

Comment 1
Comment 2