The American Association of University Women (AAUW) will honor Mary Seeger, Dean of Academic Resources and Special Programs at Grand Valley State University, for her efforts to promote gender equity in a university setting.
Seeger will receive the AAUW Legal Advocacy Fund's Progress in Equity award Thursday, March 16. Sylvia Newman, AAUW Legal Advocacy Fund president, will present the award to Seeger at noon at the Peninsular Club in Grand Rapids. The award is given annually to a program or process that advances women's equity on college campuses.
Seeger was chosen for the award particularly for her efforts at Grand Valley, which began with a 1994 Women's Climate Study. That initiative led to subsequent studies, a recent salary adjustment, the hiring of an independent consultant to study salary differences between men and women, and the hiring of a cabinet level position reporting to GVSU President Arend D. Lubbers on equity issues.
Seeger is one of GVSU's longest-serving professors, having joined the faculty in 1966, three years after the university first held classes. She has been an academic dean for 25 years. She serves as president of the Women's History Council in Grand Rapids, is active with the Girl Scouts of America, and has studied gender equity in Sweden.
Seeger to Present GVSU Study at National Conference March 27-29
Seeger will share the process and results of the GVSU climate study at a national conference later this month. Women's Lives, Women's Voices, Women's Solutions: Shaping a National Agenda for Women in Higher Education, meeting at the University of Minnesota March 27-29.
GVSU A Host for National Teleconference on Women in Higher Education
GVSU will be a venue for two broadcasts from the national conference in Minnesota. At both the Eberhard Center in downtown Grand Rapids and the Kirkhof Center on the Allendale campus, GVSU will broadcast two events live via satellite. Both presentations are free and open to the public:
¿ Monday, March 27, 12:30-3 p.m.--Keynote speaker Johnetta Cole, former President of Spellman College and current professor of Women's Studies at Emory University, will address Women's Voices: Imagining Ourselves Into the 21st Century.
¿ Wednesday, March 29--Panel discussion on Women's Solutions: Setting a National Agenda for the 21st Century. Moderated by Caryn McTighe Musil, director of the Program on the Status and Education of Women at the American Association of Colleges and Universities.
