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С����Ƶ's 150-year legacy of advancing women’s education enters a new phase this year with the start of the Rider Women’s Giving Challenge.

Joan Mazzotti ’72, a former chair of Rider's Board of Trustees and the recently retired executive director of Philadelphia Futures, is leading a giving team that will match — dollar for dollar — up to $255,000 of all new or increased gifts made by or in honor of women, potentially resulting in an additional $510,000 in support of  current and future students.

“This is our chance to pay it forward by ensuring that current and future generations of Rider women have the opportunities and resources they need to succeed in the 21st century,” Mazzotti says. “Our time is now. Never has women supporting women been more important.”

A reception with special guest and Action News anchor Sharrie Williams is being held on Oct. 28 at Rider to kick off the challenge and celebrate the University's progressive commitment to advancing women’s education and leadership.

The event will feature a networking session, a presentation on the History of Women at Rider by Erica Ryan, assistant professor of history and director of the University's Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, and a panel discussion, "My Style is My Success," moderated by Williams. The discussion will also feature four alumni of Rider, Meghan Holohan '99, '01, Hugh Regan '82, Joan Mazzotti '72 and Krishna Powell '05.

Rider has provided female access to education since the mid-19th century. The Trenton Business College, which was the University’s first incarnation in New Jersey’s capital city, graduated its first female student, Marian Ashton, in 1866. At the time, women did not have the right to vote and many married women did not have rights to their own property and wages.

By 1885, women were teaching in the college as well. Georgie T. Freas and Myra Marsh were Rider’s first female instructors. By 1929, a quarter of the institution’s faculty were women. That year, two of them, Mary Hooper and Emily Gibbons, were the first females at Rider to attain the title of professor.

As the University entered the modern era, its commitment to female education never faltered. Graduating classes have been dominated by women since the mid-1990s, which follows an overall trend in the U.S. Women constituted 60 percent of the Class of 2017. Overall, more than half (or 53 percent) of all Rider alumni are women.

Money raised through the Challenge will be used to support the current student body in the form of scholarship opportunities, study abroad programs, student-faculty research projects, multicultural programming, career services initiatives and more.

“Rider alumnae are a diverse group, but we are bound by a common intellectual foundation and a shared life experience,” Mazzotti says. “I would love to see alumnae re-engage with the University in significant numbers. With our success, we have an obligation to help the next generation of Rider women take their place in the world. The way to do that is to ensure the University has the resources to make it possible.”

The Rider Women Take the Reins Reception with special guest Sharrie Williams takes place Oct. 28 from to 5 p.m. in the Fireside Lounge of С����Ƶ's Bart Luedeke Center.

To learn more about the Rider Women's Giving Challenge, please visit www.rider.edu/riderwomen-reins.