Rutgers University
Center for the American Woman and Politics
Eagleton Institute of Politics
http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu
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[Return to Index of Expertise] Last updated 09/05/02
Contact Information:
191 Ryders Lane
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8557
Phone: 732-932-9384
Fax: 732-932-0014
E-mail: cawp@rci.rutgers.edu
CENTER DESCRIPTION
The Center for the American Woman and Politics (CAWP) is a university-based research, education, and public service center. Its mission is to promote greater understanding and knowledge about women's relationship to politics and government and to enhance women's influence and leadership in public life. CAWP acts as a catalyst and resource, provider of data and analyses, interpreter, and guide. The center raises and responds to emerging issues, working daily with women leaders as well as journalists, scholars, students, women's groups, governmental agencies, civic organizations, and political parties. CAWP is a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers.
AREA(S) OF EXPERTISE
Feminist thought and scholarship; leadership and leadership development; politics.
RECENT PROJECTS AND ACTIVITIES
Politics
National Education for Women's Leadership (NEW Leadership). The NEW Leadership Program seeks to educate and empower young women to participate in politics and the public policymaking process. The program connects young women to public policymakers and community activists to introduce them to political activism. Under the NEW Leadership rubric, CAWP offers state, regional, and national leadership programs, curriculum development programs to connect community service with public policy education, and consulting services to colleges and universities across the country.
Program for Women Public Officials. CAWP convenes the quadrennial national Forum for Women State Legislators and other national conferences and programs for women officeholders that provide information, motivation, and contacts for women leaders. CAWP works to increase the impact of women in politics and to make women's political leadership more effective.
Information Services. CAWP provides up-to-the-minute information services on the developing women's political movement. The National Information Bank on Women in Public Office contains a database on current and past women officeholders and candidates, offering timely and accurate summary information, demographics and political data on individual officeholders, and a picture of the trends and contexts in which women's political history is being made. CAWP also publishes fact sheets about women in office as well as historical and summary information; issues press releases; maintains a data bank on women officeholders and candidates; and collects information for a national directory of women public officials.
PUBLICATIONS
Women in Legislative Leadership: Report from a Conference (1986). A report from CAWP's first conference for women holding legislative leadership positions, including committee chairs, held in November of 1985 in New Jersey.
Learning to Lead: Public Leadership Education Programs for Women (1984). A resource guide describing how 10 women's colleges developed model programs to teach women about politics and public leadership.
Leaders of Organizations of Women Public Officials: Report from a Conference (1980). A report from CAWP's 1980 conference, attended by 75 leaders from organizations of women in politics and government.
Fact Sheets about Women in Elective and Appointive Office. Regularly published fact sheets about women in elective and appointive office include current data as well as historical information about women officeholders. Topics include: a summary fact sheet about women in elective office, CAWP issues fact sheets about women in the U.S. Congress, statewide elective offices, state legislatures, legislative leadership, county governing boards, municipal offices, state cabinets, the parties, and New Jersey government, women of color in elective office, sex differences in voter turnout, and the gender gap.
Equality Deferred: Women Candidates for the New Jersey Assembly 1920-1993, Richard and Katheryne McCormick (1994). A report exploring the history of women's candidacies for the New Jersey Assembly and analyzing some of the reasons for the past and current status of women as office-seekers in the state.
Reshaping the Agenda: Women in State Legislatures (1991). This report examines gender differences between state legislators in their policy views, actions, and perspectives on the legislative process.
Gender and Policymaking: Studies of Women in Office (1991). A collection of 11 essays written by scholars who received grants from CAWP to investigate the impact of elected and appointed women officeholders at the local, state, and national levels.
The Impact of Women in Public Office: An Overview (1991). A report highlighting and summarizing selected findings from CAWP's study of women state legislators and from the 11 CAWP-sponsored studies of women officeholders' impact conducted by individual scholars.
Elected Women Organize: Statewide Associations (1986). A report examining the status of statewide associations that bring women together across party lines and from all levels of office of elected women in 12 states.
Women as Candidates in American Politics, Susan J. Carroll (1985). Book examining political parties' recruitment of women candidates, the factors that affect the outcomes of women's primary election campaigns, the future office-holding ambitions of women candidates, and women candidates' views on women's issues.
Women Candidates and Their Campaigns: A Bibliography (1985). Includes listings on: general works on women candidates and their campaigns, background and recruitment of women candidates, voter reactions to women candidates, public opinion and the gender gap, financing of women's campaigns, and women's campaign organization and decision making.
Not One of the Boys: A Discussion Guide (1985). The discussion guide provides general background information on women and politics and supplementary information to accompany the film Not One of the Boys (1984). The documentary examines the progress women are making and the obstacles they are encountering after a decade of increased involvement in political life.
Not One of the Boys (1984). Sixty-minute documentary film examining the progress women are making and the obstacles they encounter after more than a decade of increased involvement in political life.
Getting Women Appointed: New Jersey's Bipartisan Coalition (1984). A monograph documenting the formation and activities in 1981 and 1982 of New Jersey's Bipartisan Coalition for Women's Appointments, an ad hoc group organized after CAWP convened a meeting of politically active women to discuss how to get more women appointed to state-level posts.
Bringing More Women into Public Office: Introductory Kit (1983). Nine fact sheets highlighting the findings from CAWP's research about women's and men's routes into elective and appointive offices.
Women Make a Difference (1983). A monograph reporting selected findings from CAWP's studies on the difference that women can and do make as elected and appointed public officials, and other themes on women in politics.
Women's Routes to Elective Office: A Comparison with Men's (1983). Based on data collected through surveys of women and men elected to state legislatures, county governing boards, and municipal offices, this report examines the factors that influence women's entry into elective offices.
Women Appointed to the Carter Administration: A Comparison with Men (1983). A profile of women who have held high-level appointive offices at the federal level and an analysis of data about all the women and a sample of the men who served in high-level appointed positions under President Jimmy Carter.
Women Appointed to State Government: A Comparison with All State Appointees (1983). A study examining appointed state cabinet-level officials and comparing the national profile of women in state cabinets to a profile of a sample of all appointees.
Women's PACs (1983). A monograph based on information gathered at a meeting with representatives of 14 political action committees that solely or primarily support women candidates, it describes some of the important questions faced by these groups and describes the varied ways in which they have answered these questions.
Political Women Tell What It Takes (1983). A report presenting information CAWP gathered at six consultations held with women public leaders in 1981 and 1982 and focusing on the roles that political parties, women's organizations, and individual women have played in recruiting and supporting women candidates and appointees.
Women State Legislators: Report from a Conference (1982). A report from CAWP's second conference for women state legislators.
In the Running: The New Woman Candidate, Ruth B. Mandel (1981). Book describing the emergence of women as candidates for elective office in the United States in the 1970s and analyzing the campaign experiences of women who ran for federal, state, and local offices across the country.
Women in Municipal Management: Choice, Challenge and Change (1980). A report of research on the routes of opportunity, credentialing requirements, necessary skills, barriers, and support systems related to the recruitment, hiring, and promotion of women as municipal managers.
Women's Organizations in the Public Service: Toward Agenda Setting (1980). A report of research organizations of women public officials across the country and their goals and agendas.
Lobbying in New Jersey (1978). An instructional handbook describing the process of lobbying within a state legislative framework, listing available resources necessary to plan and carry out an effective lobbying campaign, and explaining the legal requirements surrounding advocacy.
Report of a Legislative Internship Program of the Women's Caucus of the Maryland Legislature (1978). An account of an internship program in which college students worked for the Women's Caucus of the Maryland Legislature conducting research and tracking legislation on women's issues.
Profile of Women Holding Office II (1978). A reprint of the statistical essay from Women in Public Office, 2nd. ed., examining the numbers, personal characteristics, political backgrounds, issue orientations, and ambitions of women in federal, state, county, and local government in 1977.
Women in Public Office, 2nd ed. (1978). A directory providing names, addresses, and background data about women public officeholders surveyed in 1977.
Profile of Women Holding Office (1976). A reprint of the statistical essay from the first edition of Women in Public Office, this report is a description of the numbers, location, and characteristics of women holding office at federal, state, county, and local levels nationwide.
Voluntary Participation Among Women in the United States: A Selected Biography, 1950-1976 (1976). A bibliography citing materials on the nature and extent of U.S. women's voluntary activities and affiliations.
Women State Legislators: Report from a Conference (1973). Report from the first national conference of elected women, held in 1972.
Politics
The 1992 Election and the Politics of Abortion: Lessons from the Past, Implications for the Future (1993). A report focusing on the race for President nationally as well as elections in California for President, U.S. Senate, and state assembly, and providing an in-depth look at the effects of the abortion issue on several election contests in order to explain the role it played in the electoral process and to speculate about what electoral politics may hold for abortion policy and cultural politics in the future.
Abortion Politics in State Elections: Comparisons Across States (1991). A report analyzing the role of the abortion issue in four states' gubernatorial elections: the 1989 New Jersey and Virginia races and the 1990 Michigan and Pennsylvania races.
Election 1989: The Abortion Issue in New Jersey and Virginia (1990). This report contains findings from a study of the first two states to hold gubernatorial and state legislative elections after the Supreme Court's Webster v. Reproductive Health Services decision.
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