Kimberly DeSimone, several other colleagues from St Bonaventure and I developed a women’s history bracket to coincide with Women’s History Month. More information may be found at our website: www.marchintowomenshistory.wordpress.com including our related social media outlets, why we are doing this, how we did it, etc.
To summarize:
We took the NCAA basketball bracket and divided it into four categories, STEM, business, government, and advocacy, and narrowed the extensive fields to 16 women in each category. We chose these categories because STEM, government and business are still areas in which women are woefully underrepresented. Given the political climate worldwide, advocacy seemed a great option also. (I’ve attached the bracket here for your information.)
On the site you will see short bios of each woman. They are grouped as they are on the bracket. After each group of two women, you will see that you are able to vote. We are going to narrow the field by voting so please vote and share with your friends, colleagues, relatives, anyone you can think of.
Tap Into Greater Olean also did a podcast related to this. You may listen to it at this link:
https://www.tapinto.net/towns/greater-olean/sections/arts-and-entertainment/articles/podcast-dean-pauline-hoffmann-discusses-march-in
You’ll need to scroll down a bit to find the link to play the podcast.
Our hope is that we start a conversation. Certainly 16 women in each category does not nearly sum up the contributions of women in that area. Please tell us who we’ve missed (I’ve already heard from some of you)! You may do so via the website or through our social media outlets (noted on the website). Tell us what we did right. Give us suggestions for next year.
We are narrowing our field of 64 down to 32 by Wednesday, March 8. We will announce the 32 and continue until March 30 when we announce our winner. We have tentatively planned to do so at 4 p.m. in Murphy but please watch for an additional announcement related to this. Other dates in the process:
- The Sweet 16 will be announced on March 16.
- On March 17 we will start voting to narrow the field to our Elite 8.
- March 20 we will announce the Elite 8 and start voting to narrow to our Final Four.
- The Final Four will be announced on March 23. Voting will start to narrow the field to our final two women.
- March 27 we will start voting for our final woman who will be announced March 30.
Please let me know if you have any questions and I hope you join us!
March Madness Bracket 
Pauline W. Hoffmann, Ph.D.
Dean, Jandoli School of Communication