By: Shannon Smith
Her Campus celebrates their “first birthday”, reflecting on the year of accomplishments and success that has been made on Merrimack College campus.
Addison Molloy, President Her Campus alongside her good friend Chelsea Miller, Vice President both founded Her Campus at Merrimack in the Spring of 2023. There was a very rigorous process that the two had to go through including lots of writing and editing tests sent from the Her Campus National account to finally be approved by the Student Government Association at Merrimack.
“Her Campus is an international organization at 400 colleges that feature an online magazine, targeting female college students. The chapter at Merrimack holds weekly meetings, posts weekly articles, holds events on campus and posts lots of content on social media”, Molloy states.
October 3rd marks what is now known as Her Campus’s birthday. The day that the first meeting was held on campus. Over the last year there has been so much success for Her Campus at Merrimack, “last year having 50 members to this year having 100 members”, says Molloy.
Eva Kenyen, a first year nursing student, heard about Her Campus because she “saw at other colleges and found out that Merrimack had one and I wanted to be involved in something in a smaller way without a big committee”.
Kenyen reflected on her first couple of months being in Her Campus and states, “everyone is so friendly and willing to talk to each other to make something work.” As someone who likes social media but is a nursing student she finds Her Campus as her outlet to have “fun not as a major”.
This was Molloy’s original goal back when she was getting the organization started, she wanted a “creative outlet and space for women to express themselves and build a community.”
As Molloy finishes her senior year at Merrimack, she is relying heavily on the younger members of the club such as Kenyen, who is “excited for more ideas, for future events and more opportunity to build and grow as a club”. Kenyen hopes in the future that she will be on the E-Board and caring for the legacy that has been created so far.
Molloy had to endure lots of hard work and dedication to get Her Campus at Merrimack the point they are in today. Molloy states “getting it to be a club and being approved by two different spaces is hard, navigating the school and Her Campus policies is difficult”. There is lots of rules and guidelines that she had to follow to get the club up and running.
Molloy’s hard work finally paid off in April 2024 at Merrimack College LEAD awards. Her Campus won ‘Best New Student Organization’. This has by far been the biggest accomplishment for Molloy and Miller because they like to think of Her Campus as their “baby”. Starting the club together and getting ‘Best New Student Organization’ was a really big deal.
This semester Molloy is focusing on “leading a strong and large organization and having another successful year”. She is excited to see what is in store for the next year and thankful for the people that have been there to help her reach her goals for Her Campus.
