Nearly 250 people, mostly women, filed into the McKimmon Center on Wednesday evening to celebrate womanhood and to learn more about themselves and each other, at the 24th annual Sisterhood Dinner.

Susanne Gaddis, also known as the “Communications Doctor,” was the keynote speaker of the evening, delivering a presentation called “All Stressed Up [And No Place to Go.]”

“For me, it’s more like ‘all stressed up and too many places to go,'” Provost Larry Nielson said at the beginning of the event.

The evening started with Patricia Caple, an associate professor in communication, delivering the historical Sojourner Truth monologue, “Ain’t I a Woman?”

Valerie Ball, chair of the Sisterhood Dinner, said she was pleased with the “overwhelming participation.”

“We could just see the enthusiasm in the participants,” Ball said.

Gaddis’ motivational presentation was the highlight of the evening for several attendees, including Margeurite Pressley and Bennita Whitfield of the Pre-Law Students’ Association.

“I like that the woman leaders united to talk about topics that actually affect us,” Pressley, a junior in business management, said.

Whitfield, a junior in political science, agreed.

“This helped us enhance our sisterhood and our collaboration with women of distinction,” she said.

Gaddis actively discussed stress — both how to decrease it in a person’s life and in the lives of those around him or her.

She began with a joyful tune: “If you’re stressed and you know it, clap your hands!”

“When women are stressed, we tend to ‘tend and befriend,'” Gaddis said. “We’ll start cleaning or doing something to enhance our personal space.”

She went on to say that “men are from Mars and women are from Venus.”

“Men will go into their caves and want more alone time,” Gaddis said.

Pressley said she enjoyed Gaddis’ presentation because “we can take this and apply it every day.”

Gaddis said she hopes people will take what they learned at the Sisterhood Dinner and use it to their advantage in the “real world.”

“When you graduate and go to get your first job out of college, you have the ability to enhance your workplace relationships,” Gaddis said. “The tools we talked about tonight are good for everyone.”

The main focus of her section about communication is that every time communication takes place, there is a chance to enhance or damage the relationship.

“These are tools everyone can apply to improve their relationships,” Gaddis said.