Josh Imhof | features editor

While Damaria Wedderburn, president of Ebony Women for Social Change, and Norah Delaney, president of the Duquesne Society of Women Engineers (SWE), are busy college students, you can often find them in classrooms or at events working with the next generation of women leaders.

Whether Wedderburn is flying paper planes with Pittsburgh Public School kids or Delaney is building balloon cars with children at a conference in New Orleans, both have a passion for inspiring others.

“As young little girls, they deserve to be uplifted. They need to be uplifted,” Wedderburn said.

March is Women’s History Month in the United States, an annual observance that aims to highlight the contributions of women to the country. Between academic clubs, athletic clubs and sororities, Duquesne has over two dozen organizations centered around women like Ebony Women for Social Change and the SWE.

Wedderburn said that her organization’s goal is to empower women of color on campus and provide a space where they can meet a community of others who look like them. She started coming to meetings her freshman year. By the end of it, she was elected secretary.

“I knew I wanted to be involved,” she said.

As president, she and her executive board have hosted events such as Black Hair Day, a poetry night and most recently, the Medley of Melanin Beauty Pageant, where Black women on campus dressed up and competed for the title of “Miss Black.”

Despite the competition, Wedderburn said the goal of these events is to make everyone feel welcomed.

“We strive to have that sense of community,” she said. “We invite almost everyone who just needs to come in and talk about whatever they’re feeling.”

Delaney also works to create inclusive environments in her field, especially as newer programs like mechanical and civil engineering pop up at Duquesne.

“I think how I’m tackling that issue and being a mentor for them is by creating those opportunities for them to grow in their profession,” the biomedical engineering student said.

Nationally, women make up 25% of biomedical engineers, 17% of civil engineers and 9% of mechanical engineers, according to 2021 U.S. Census Data. More recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics suggests women only make up around 16% of all engineering and architecture jobs in the U.S.

Delaney said that this makes the work she does more important.

“I feel like the reason engineering is so male dominated is because it’s just always been that way,” she said. “I would just sort of tell [younger girls] not to let that outside pressure, or what you’re currently seeing in the field, dictate what you can or can’t do.”

Delaney recently competed in a biohack competition with other SWE students where they were tasked with developing a non-visual syringe system that blind people could use to measure their medication. The girls used color codes to trigger a buzzer that would signal a certain amount of medication in syringes, and even developed a functional prototype.

“Current devices are tactile and our mentor said that was really easy to miss, and you don’t want to be measuring inaccurate dosings,” Delaney said.

Student leaders are not the only ones paving the way for women on campus.

Leanna Fenneberg, senior vice president for student life, has been a jack of all trades since she attended Marquette University in Wisconsin as an undergrad.

Fenneberg, who is a first generation student, said she participated in student government, campus television and radio stations, campus ministries and in student life as a residence assistant during her time as a Golden Eagle. Her time as an RA led her to shift from a career in broadcast to a career in student affairs and higher education.

“All of those experiences were just really enriching as a student leader,” Fenneberg said. “I realized at some point ‘I feel like I’m giving more and getting more from my RA position and all that I’m investing in with individual relationships with residents and programming than everything else academically.’”

This mindset led her to the work she does at Duquesne.

“I want to uplift people who have had challenges in life, and people who have been underrepresented or have faced marginalization,” she said.

While Fenneberg said she has not faced any overt sexism or marginalization, she does think that women are often looked at based on societal expectations or stereotypes.

Similar to engineering, women make up a minority of senior leadership positions at colleges and universities, according to research from the American Association of University Professors. In addition, full-time women faculty members make an average of 84.1% of what men make, according to the same research.

“I think sometimes women can be judged inaccurately or unfairly because they don’t have the stereotypical traits of male leadership,” she said. “And if they exercise those traits, they’ll be judged even more harshly.”

This has led to “underlying tension” in places where women are expected to be notetakers and facilitators.

“Automatically, the eyes go to the women in the room,” she said. “It’s just an innate expectation that you know they’re gonna expect that.”

Fenneberg said that she would tell future women leaders that they are as good as anyone, and they must recognize their own self-worth and talents.

“When you’re put in a situation, or when you’ve sought out an opportunity, make the most of it and [don’t] get in your head to minimize why you have that opportunity,” she said. “But to realize you have a gift, you’re placed there for a reason and your gifts will contribute positively.”

Kiara McIntosh, secretary of Ebony Women for Change and president-elect for the Pennsylvania Society of Health-System Pharmacists, said she often tells herself this.

“Just say yes and see what happens,” she said. “I remind myself ‘you’ve gotten this far for a reason, and you know people are asking to be a part of these organizations for a reason.’ Trust yourself taking that first step.”

Josh Imhof can be reached at imhofj@duq.edu

*This article was updated for accuracy on March 27, 2026. The sentence reading “Leanna Fenneberg, senior vice president for student life, has been a jack of all trades since she attended Marquette University in Michigan as an undergrad.” has been corrected to “Leanna Fenneberg, senior vice president for student life, has been a jack of all trades since she attended Marquette University in Wisconsin as an undergrad.”