Research Careers Begin at CEW

CEW is a valuable resource for graduate students focusing on gender-related issues. Over the years, many scholars have begun successful careers at the Center, benefiting from the research skills and interests that CEW nurtured. We are very proud of all our former graduate students, including the following three illustrious alums.

Stacy Wenzel, Senior Researcher, University of Illinois at Chicago
From 1993 to 1995, engineer Stacy Wenzel worked at CEW while completing a PhD at UM's Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education (CSHPE). "CEW allowed me," she says, "to experience the type of applied research that first interested me in graduate studies. I wanted to figure out (and still do) how to improve universities and schools so that excellent math, science, and engineering education is accessible to all – especially women and girls."

Stacy is now a senior researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she co-directs an evaluation team in the College of Education. While she appreciates the grant writing, networking, and collaboration skills she learned at CEW, Stacy particularly values having had the opportunity to work for an "organization that tries to live by its feminist philosophy, where the process as well as the products of the work are good for the women there. I've tried to create/support that type of workplace on projects and organizations ever since."

Gloria Thomas, Associate Director, ACE, Office of Women in Higher Education
After earning an undergraduate degree from and working for almost ten years in admissions at Swarthmore College, Gloria Thomas worked at the Center from 1996 to 2000, while she completed her doctorate from CSHPE. She served on CEW's University-wide Faculty Work Life Study; conducted interviews for Through My Lens, a video about the experiences of Michigan's women of color faculty; and coordinated the Women of Color in the Academy Project (WOCAP).

Gloria is now at the American Council on Education in Washington, DC, where she holds two titles: Associate Director of the Office of Women in Higher Education, focused on leadership development for academic women, and Associate Project Director of the ACE-Sloan Foundation Projects on Faculty Career Flexibility. "Working at CEW launched me into a career focused on success for women in academe. Learning about significant gender differences among faculty at UM and the problems of retention and support for women of color faculty, I developed a passion for helping to recruit and retain women in academic careers and higher education administration."

Louise August, CEW, Research Specialist
Louise August first came to CEW in 2002 when, like Stacy and Gloria, she was earning a PhD in higher education Ð making a career change from corporate finance to academic research. After completing a dissertation based upon CEW data, Louise remained on the Center's staff as a Research Specialist. Over the past five years, she has conducted applied research on a variety of gender-related issues, including retention and career satisfaction among women faculty; academic career flexibility and work-life balance; working conditions for professionals in the non-tenure track instructional rank; and the low numbers of women in upper management positions in our state's top 100 corporations.

"CEW's warm, collegial environment has given me both financial and moral support," Louise says. "I've been able to remain in a great academic setting where the mission meshes perfectly with my own research interests." Louise also introduces CEW research to national audiences through her many publications and conference presentations, most recently at the Association of Institutional Research Conference in Kansas City in March, 2007.

A fully funded Riecker Graduate Student Research Fund will ensure that, through our collaborations with budding scholars like Stacy, Gloria, and Louise, CEW continues to make key contributions to gender and racial equity and other important national issues. We urge you to
consider contributing to the Riecker Graduate Student Research Fund.