Annual brunch celebrates women and builds connections
By Chelyen Davis
When the first Celebrating the Women of VCU Brunch was held in 2023, organizers hoped it would support an important VCU Alumni engagement goal: Creating more programming open to all with a focus on uplifting and empowering VCU’s women. After all, women represent 60% of VCU’s student body and more than half of its alumni base, according to university data.
Four years later, it’s clear that the brunch is finding, and serving, its audience. That first year, the event sold out in a week, and drew 75 attendees. This year, it drew 250 people, with 50 more on the waitlist — a more than 200% increase.
“When we thought of this event, it was initially a way to recognize and celebrate women during Women’s History Month,” says Latisha Smart, senior director of alumni career and personal development. “It has since been a way to not only gather as a community our VCU alumnae, but also pour back into our VCU alumna-owned businesses.”
Each year’s event features a keynote speaker and showcases VCU alumna-owned businesses, often aligned with the event’s theme. This year’s was “In Full Bloom: Honoring the Women Who Inspire Us.” There are activities, vendors and an offering Smart says is always popular: professional headshots from an alumna-owned business.
“It shows the interest, it shows the pull that women have that want to come together in community,” Smart says. “It’s always just been our goal to get VCU women and supporters in the room with one another.”
While the brunch uplifts women, everyone is welcome, Smart says.
“It originally started with VCU alumnae but it has expanded to the VCU community,” she says. So we get a ton of faculty and staff, we get alumnae of course, we get friends of the university, donors, parents and families of VCU students. So it’s exciting to see how it has expanded and has just been this domino effect across this group of people who are excited each year for this to come back.”
Maya Rogers Gibson (B.S.’19, M.P.A.’23) attended the first brunch in 2023 with a sorority sister. She knew right away it was something she’d do again.
“Even though it was networking, it was more of that low maintenance type of networking,” says Gibson, who is now employed as financial services manager in VCU’s Office of the Provost and served as president of the VCU Staff Senate from 2024-2026. “It was really just a great experience. … It was such an uplifting experience and such a positive environment, tied to uplifting women and empowering women. I knew for sure I was going to continue to go to these events.”
This year’s brunch featured VCU alum Jay Ell Alexander (M.S.’10), owner and CEO of Black Girls RUN! a national running organization, as the guest speaker. In a fireside-chat-style conversation with Tomika Ferguson, Ph.D., associate dean of student affairs and community engagement in the VCU School of Education, Alexander spoke about her story and the people who helped her along the way.
“She was vulnerable, authentic, funny and deeply engaging, and people really responded to that,” says Amy Gray Beck, Ph.D. (Ph.D.’19), executive director of affinity programs for the VCU Office of Development and Alumni Relations. “The essence of the brunch is hard to explain if you haven’t experienced it yourself. There’s so much joy, and it feels like no one is a stranger. Our speakers have been honest and open, and attendees have appreciated hearing something authentic and vulnerable when they come. Especially for those who return year after year, there’s an expectation that they’ll walk away with something meaningful and genuine — and they have.”
The popularity of the brunch led to the founding of the VCU Women’s Impact Network, an affinity engagement and philanthropy group dedicated to creating a network of women leaders. WIN is wrapping up its charter year, with membership starting at $1,000 annually (or $500 for recent grads).
“There is a lot of energy and hunger for women to be together and for us to celebrate women,” says Beck, who led focus groups and a steering committee to identify WIN’s vision and priorities.
VCU alum and parent Jennifer McDonald (M.P.H.’‘09) came to the brunch in 2025 because she was looking to build deeper connections. For years, she had focused on building her career and being a parent, but once she became an empty nester, she says, she wanted to “put myself out there and connect.”
The brunch proved the perfect place for her.
“I just fell in love. It was an amazing brunch, just to see so many people of diverse backgrounds who are working in so many areas, in health, in the arts,” McDonald says. “It honestly just energized me. I felt like I really had a place at the table.”
After the brunch experience, she says, she joined WIN immediately.
“It’s just a great way to meet people, network and talk to women who’ve gone through the stages of life that I have, the stages of personal life, professional life,” McDonald says. “I’d say I’m in the last 10-15 years of my career and I feel like I’m starting to bloom. I can’t stop learning, because that means my mind is going to go dormant. I want to live a very fulfilling and innovative life.”
Even though it’s in its charter year, Beck says, WIN is already raising significant funds to support WIN’s programming as well as many other areas of VCU.
“WIN is really special because it brings together people from across so many different areas of VCU in a way that hadn’t really existed before,” Beck says, noting that the network includes male members as well. “If you care about empowering women, uplifting women, and recognizing and celebrating their impact, there’s a place for you in WIN. WIN is truly for everyone.”
That empowerment is the impact McDonald wants to see from WIN.
“I want women at the table for many decisions being made. And I want young women to feel empowered that they can be at those tables,” she says. “I want everybody to know WIN as a household name, that we are there to provide any kind of subject matter expertise. Especially the young women, they need to know they’re empowered and they can make their own decisions and contribute … to any decision around the university.”
After attending the brunches and other WIN events feeling that she always walked away with good, timely advice for her life and career, Gibson decided this year to join WIN.
“I always step away from one of their events feeling empowered,” Gibson says. “I leave every conversation, every program feeling like I have so much more wealth of knowledge, and I always feel very positive and empowered.”
Gibson graduated from VCU with her undergraduate degree in 2019, and feels like her cohort of classmates didn’t tap into VCU’s alumni network because the COVID pandemic shut down events soon after they graduated. Now, she says, she urges her friends to reconnect as alums.
“I would encourage any individual that wants to still feel connected to the university to join WIN, because that’s exactly what it provides you with. That community that you felt while you were in school,” Gibson says. “This is that second opportunity for you to continue to be part of VCU and still feel connected.”
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