Preparing Women for Public Leadership: Programs and Strategies Essay

Preparing Women for Public Leadership: Programs and Strategies While we know that women are underrepresented in all facets of public leadership – from political to corporate and local to global – we have a particularly compelling reason to explore this issue in our immediate regional context. Pennsylvania ranks 44th out of the 50 states (CAWP, 2003) in women’s political participation and serves as an excellent local example of the need to empower more women and to change the climate in which they attempt to practice leadership. The Pennsylvania Center for Women, Politics, and Public Policy (PCWPPP) was created in 1998, through a seed grant, to address this historic under-representation and to provide programs to increase the level of political participation of women in Pennsylvania through education, public service, and research. Over the past five years, hundreds of women have attended Center-sponsored programs and activities, including the NEW Leadership Institute, while others from across the state have participated in the e-MERGING Leaders electronic mentoring program. More specifically, current PCWPPP activities include public leadership and political training seminars for college women, candidate training, a fellow-in-residence program, topical lectures for the campus community and the public, data collection about women, sponsorship of Washington D.C. seminars on women and public policy for which students earn academic credit, the Conversations with Women in Politics and Public Policy lecture series, voting drives, and a variety of community partnerships. This paper sets the political and academic context for such programming, examines three programs that we believe meet the multiple of objectives of serving stude... ...cago Press. Tamerius, K. (1995). Sex, Gender, and Leadership in the Representation of Women. In G. Duerst-Lahti & R. M. Kelly (Eds.), Gender, Power, Leadership, and Governance. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan. Thomas, S. & Welch, S. (1991). The Impact of Gender on Activities and Priorities of State Legislators. Western Political Quarterly, 44, 445-456. Thomas, S. (1997). Why Gender Matters: The Perceptions of Women Officeholders. Women & Politics, 17, 27-54. Walker, T. (2000). The Service/Politics Split: Rethinking Service to Teach Political Engagement. PS: Political Science & Politics, 33, 647-649. Wolbrecht, C. (2000). The Politics of Women’s Rights. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Wolbrecht, C. (2002). The Politics of Women’s Rights. In K. O’Connor (Ed.), Women and Congress: Running, Winning, and Ruling. New York: New Haven Press.