Center for the Education of Women at the University of Michigan, Honoree | 2005 Women Who Make a Difference Awards Dinner

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2005 Women Who Make a Difference
Awards Dinner
March 1, 2005

Click here for awards ceremony information.
Click here for the afternoon program.

Honoree Profile and Remarks
Click here for the list of all 2005 honorees.

Member Center Honoree
The Center for the Education of Women (CEW) at the University of Michigan
Carol Hollenshead, Director

The Center for the Education of Women (CEW) was established in 1964 as a pioneering university women's center. CEW was founded with a three part mission of service, advocacy, and research. CEW maintains that mission today, serving University students, staff and faculty, community members, women and men, facing educational, employment or other life issues. CEW's research and advocacy work related to women's educational and employment issues and women's lives has had an enormous impact on the University of Michigan campus, across the state of Michigan and nationally. Over the years, CEW has served as a model for other centers.

CEW collaborates with researchers across the University, research centers in the NCRW network, and national organizations to create conditions that facilitate excellent research and to make connections between education and research, public policy, and advocacy. CEW also brings together scholars, advocates, and citizens to learn about its own and related research on topics related to women. Ongoing CEW projects include the 2005 Mullin Welch lecture which will feature Sarah Weddington (who successfully argued the winning side of Roe v. Wade before the U.S. Supreme Court) and the Sloan Foundation funded web-based Academic Workforce Dual Ladder Clearinghouse under development that will track career and work-life issues for tenure and non tenure faculty.

CEW has long been recognized as a catalyst for change, conducting and using research to bring about fundamental transformations for women. Through research, advocacy, policy development, and dissemination, CEW has provided a synergistic approach to addressing gender equity for forty years.

CEW Director Carol Hollenshead's Remarks

Carol Hollenshead I stand on the shoulders of remarkable women - chief among them Center for the Education of Women founder, the late Louise Cain, and Jean Campbell, who led the Center so brilliantly for its first 20 years.

For 40 years the Center has woven together research, service, and advocacy in order to break down barriers to women's success. In those 40 years knowledge has been gained, policies changed, and thousands of lives have been transformed. I am proud of our heritage and our victories.

But what of the next 40 years? No doubt our founders believed in 1964, a time of optimism and hope, that in 2005 our work would be done. Today, in spite of , and often because of our successes, our Center - and the National Council - are needed more than ever.

Today, our research shows that federal welfare policies make it far harder for low income women to get an education - and a way out of poverty - than was the case 20 years ago. The pressures of work have increased over the last 30 years, making work/life balance an oxymoron. There are daily challenges to our reproductive rights and across the globe - and in our own back yards - violence against women is rampant; corporate board rooms and executive suites continue to be devoid of women. And just last month, the President of the most prestigious university in America implied that women are innately inferior.

Yes, we have more work to do.

I am honored by this award, as are all of the current and former staff of the Center and all its supporters. I accept it gratefully on their behalf. I am newly inspired by this National Council award - and your presence tonight. I will continue - and CEW will continue - to keep fighting for the vision of our founds - a world where our daughters and granddaughters can fulfill their dreams.

Thank you.