Colby-Sawyer Women at the Core of The New Hampshire Women's Caucus
When Colby-Sawyer College hosts “What Women Want Now: The New Hampshire Women's Caucus” on Saturday, Nov. 12, 2011, there will be plenty of familiar names in the program.
In early 2009, Colby-Sawyer College professors of Humanities and feminist scholars Margaret Wiley, Ann Page Stecker and Melissa Meade joined forces to consider ways to marshal the collective power of women and inspire them to work together to improve their status. While women in the U.S. have made enormous strides in achieving social and economic parity, they still lag behind men in critical areas. The professors concluded that Colby-Sawyer, a former women's college located in New Hampshire – home of the first-in-the-nation primary – was well positioned to host a caucus for the purpose of identifying and bringing attention to the critical issues in three areas: Women and Health; Women and the Economy; and Global Women's Issues.
In 2010, a Steering Committee made up of Colby-Sawyer faculty and staff was formed to plan and organize the caucus. Members include Professors Wiley, Stecker and Meade, as well as Assistant Professor of Social Sciences and Education Kathleen Farrell; Director of Communications Kimberly Slover and Assistant Director of Communications Kate Seamans, and Technology Specialist Amy Millios.
The Steering Committee assembled an Advisory Board of passionate and engaged people with relevant areas of expertise and strong interest in women's issues. Colby-Sawyer-affiliated board members include Hilary Cleveland, professor emerita of History, Political Science; alumna and former trustee Eleanor Morrison Goldthwait '51; alumna Ricia McMahon '79, former New Hampshire state legislator; trustee Susan DeBevoise Wright; and First Lady of the College, Susan Stokes Galligan. Other board members include Jeff Feingold, editor of New Hampshire Business Review; Carol. L. Folt, provost of Dartmouth College, and Wynona Ward, and founder of “Have Justice Will Travel.
“What Women Want Now: The New Hampshire Women's Caucus,” seeks to educate participants about issues of concern to women and families and connect them to resources and tools they will need to bring about positive change. Sheryl WuDunn, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and co-author of The New York Times best-selling book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, will deliver the keynote address. Complimentary childcare is available at the Windy Hill School with advance registration. Reserved tickets for WuDunn's keynote address are included in the caucus registration fee or may be purchased separately. A book-signing and reception will follow WuDunn's presentation. Learn more and register here.
A Moderating Influence
After creating and shaping the event, Colby-Sawyer faculty and staff will continue to play vital roles on the big day as panel and caucus moderators.
Susan Reeves, R.N., Ed.D., has many professional roles: she is chair of the Colby-Sawyer's Nursing Department, associate academic dean for Dartmouth-Hitchcock Partnership Programs at Colby-Sawyer, and she serves as vice president of operations at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. For the Women's Caucus, she will serve as moderator of the Women, Health and Healthcare panel. Dr. Reeves joined the Colby-Sawyer faculty as its department chair and director in 2007. Her areas of expertise include ethics, healthcare, human resource management, management, nursing and organizational behavior. Dr. Reeves is a graduate of Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital of Nursing and of Colby-Sawyer College's Nursing Program. She earned a M.S. from University of New Hampshire and is a graduate of the doctor of education program at University of Vermont, with a concentration in educational leadership and policy studies.
Pamela Serota Cote, Ed.D., moderator of the “Global Women's Issues” panel, is associate dean of International and Diversity Programs at the college. In this role, she facilitates the strategic initiatives of the college as relates to increased diversity and internationalization of the educational experience for the campus community. Dr. Serota Cote earned her B.A. in French from Oberlin College, her M.Ed. in Counseling from University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and her Ed.D. in Organization and Leadership from the University of San Francisco. She has been the recipient of two Fulbright Foundation awards: a teaching assistantship in France and an international education administrator's grant in Germany. Her doctoral research considered the influence of language immersion education and the language revitalization efforts of a cultural and linguistic minority population in France to explore the role of diverse ethnic, linguistic and communal identity within national identity.
Moderator Melissa Meade, Ph.D., is associate professor of Humanities at Colby-Sawyer College. Dr. Meade teaches in communication and media studies as well as gender and women's studies. Her undergraduate courses include media theory, history and law, feminist media studies, and feminist theory and history. Dr. Meade's research interests include media and cultural history, women's media and media activism. She is currently working on a book-length manuscript investigating “all-girl” media of the mid-20th century and relationships to the so-called second wave feminist movement. Dr. Meade earned her bachelor's degree from Purdue University and her master's and doctoral degrees from University of Washington.
Ricia McMahon, chair of the Sutton (N.H.) Selectboard and a former three-term member of N.H. House of Representatives and White House policy advisor, will coordinate the caucus session. From 2004 to 2010, Ms. McMahon served as the state representative for Newbury and Sutton, N.H. From 1993 to 2001, she was chief of staff and senior policy advisor in the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and director of Community Outreach for Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She graduated from East Stroudsburg State College and Colby-Sawyer College, and holds a M.S. in Management from Lesley University.
Read more about all the panelists and moderators taking part in the Caucus here.
What's It All About?
“We know that when women work together, we have the power to improve the lives of women and their families,” says Professor Wiley. “The New Hampshire Women's Caucus seeks to bring women of all ages and political persuasions together to focus attention on areas where they can bring about profound and necessary changes. One of our most important goals is to ensure that caucus participants engage in women's most critical issues and feel inspired and prepared to act as agents of change in the world, both individually and collectively, to improve the status of women.”
The NHWC program features opening remarks by Ann McLane Kuster, a public policy advocate, attorney, and candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives. Three panels of experts will follow in the morning session, presenting arguments for issues within three major topic areas: women and the economy; women, health and healthcare; and global women's issues.
The mid-day caucus session will include lunch, discussion and voting, with participants invited to introduce additional issues or topics for consideration for The New Hampshire Women's Caucus Platform. The afternoon's Tools for Change workshop features discussions with a panel of experts who will offer strategies, practical advice and resources for building community and creating positive change through traditional and social media, legislative and public policy advocacy, government and politics, and community-based and non-profit organizations.
Prior to Sheryl WuDunn's keynote speech, The New Hampshire Women's Caucus Platform will be announced publicly, identifying the issues that participants deem both critical to women and able to be addressed effectively through collective engagement and action. The platform will be delivered to traditional and social media as well as to political candidates and office holders.
In Half the Sky, keynote speaker Sheryl WuDunn and co-author and husband Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times columnist and reporter, cite three major areas of oppression against women around the world as “the moral outrage of our century”: sex trafficking and forced prostitution; gender-based violence, including honor killings and mass rape; and maternal mortality.
WuDunn and Kristof have launched a multimedia effort that includes an online social action campaign to build a movement to end oppression and empower women and girls through education and economic support. They make a compelling argument in Half the Sky that by providing women with the tools to educate and support themselves, the entire family and the community benefit in ways that traditional aid organizations have only recently begun to recognize.
To learn more about What Women Want Now: The New Hampshire Women's Caucus, visit www.colby-sawyer.edu/nhwomenscaucus or contact Kimberly Swick Slover, director of communications at Colby-Sawyer College, at kslover@colby-sawyer.edu.
-Kate Seamans and Kimberly Swick Slover
