On October 23, our Senior Research Manager, Maria Wilson, had the opportunity to return to her alma mater, Rutgers University, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Women and Politics program in the Political Science Department. The Rutgers Women and Politics program is the only graduate program in the country that offers Women and Politics as an official field of study within the political science discipline. The celebration included an oral history of the program and the contributions graduates have made to the study of gender and politics. It was so great to connect with former classmates, current graduate students, and faculty members, including Professors Emerita Dr. Sue Carroll and Cyndi Daniels – trailblazers in the field. Maria also reunited with former faculty advisors Dr. Kira Sanbonmatsu and Dr. Paru Shah, both senior scholars at the Center for American Women in Politics.
In addition, Maria was invited to join a panel of former faculty and students to share how her training at Rutgers prepared her to lead Vote Mama Foundation’s research projects. She shared, “The Rutgers Women and Politics program has given me the training and methodological tools I needed to be a successful researcher, and many of the skills I use every day were developed through my experiences in the program.”
It was great to spend the day reminiscing about the history of this program that has produced four decades of scholars, and Vote Mama Foundation is excited to be connected to a program with such an impact in the field of gender and politics.
