Women’s Leadership Awards Reception Recognizes Outstanding Women
Tampa, FL (March 25, 2009) – The Women’s Status Committee of the University of South Florida, along with USF President Judy Genshaft and USF Senior Vice-Provost Dwayne Smith, honored this year’s recipients of the 2009 Women’s Leadership Awards at a reception on March 24, 2009, at the USF Marshall Center.
This year’s recipients included USF faculty Dr. Kathleen Carvalho-Knighton of USF St. Petersburg’s Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Geography, Dr. Donna Elam of USF College of Education, and Dr. Pauline Powers of USF College of Medicine. USF alumna Anna Abella and USF students, Eileen Dabrowski and Deidra Hodges, were also honored with this year’s awards.
The Women’s Leadership Awards were established in 2004 by President Judy Genshaft to recognize outstanding contributions in research, service and mentoring to women and girls at USF and in the community.
This year’s awards featured Abella’s work with the Ophelia Project in Tampa Bay, Carvahlo-Knighton’s mentoring of women in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) areas, Elam’s work on diversity issues in education, Power’s research and activism on eating disorders, Dabrowski’s campus activism for safety issues, and Hodges’ outreach to girls in the community about Engineering.
Elizabeth Bell, chair of the Women’s Status Committee, spoke of the award process. “In January, our committee sent out a call for nominations for this award. We were flooded with nomination packets from across the university. And each packet—from supervisors, from students, from mentees, and from colleagues—told the story of a woman whose time, energies, and talents coalesced in life-enhancing ways for other women.”
About the USF Women’s Status Committee
The Women's Status Committee is a presidential advisory committee, responsible for advising the president of the university on matters affecting women staff, faculty and students of the university. The committee is particularly concerned with those university policies concerning the welfare and activities of women with regard to educational and employment opportunities at the university. Visit the WSC website at http://cas.usf.edu/communication/WSC.
