Expert to discuss gender equity in higher education

“Gender Equity in Higher Education: What the President of Harvard Doesn’t Know” will be addressed in a presentation by Louise F. Root-Robbins, coordinator of the UW System’s Status of Women Initiative, on Thursday, March 31, at the UW–Madison.

Root-Robbins is also co-director of UW System’s Sloan Project for Academic Career Advancement. In these positions, she is a resource for campus-based and collaborative initiatives to work toward organizational development and change to improve the status of UW System women faculty, staff and students.

Prior to this position, Root-Robbins taught and conducted research in the medical and nursing schools at UW–Madison. She has been a senior administrator at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction and Division of Health, where she worked closely with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on implementing statewide HIV/AIDS prevention programs and advising the state superintendent on comprehensive school-health program implementation. She is frequently invited to speak on topics related to gender equity, women as leaders, work/life and organization change issues in higher education.

She is vice president of the national organization College and University Work/Family Association and president-elect of the Wisconsin Women in Higher Education Leadership. She received the 1993 League of Women Voters Citizen of Distinction Award, the 2003 YWCA Woman of Distinction Award and the 2003 Margaret Miller Award from Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin.

Her presentation is one of a series of colloquia that are part of Wisconsin Women = Prosperity, a non-partisan, statewide initiative that Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton directs. The program works to improve the status of women and to drive economic growth for Wisconsin by increasing women’s success.

Root-Robbins is the third speaker in the spring portion. The series concludes April 28 with Georgia Duerst-Lahti, a political science professor at Beloit College.

The presentations are 4-5 p.m. at the Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St. A reception follows each talk.

The colloquia are sponsored by the University of Wisconsin–Madison Joint Center for Public Policy and the Status of Women, an effort of the Women’s Studies Research Center and the Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs.

For more information, contact Terry Shelton, (608) 262-3038 or shelton@lafollette.wisc.edu.