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Sheryl Lovelady is the Director of Women’s Leadership Initiative at the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center at the University of Oklahoma. She coordinates civic education programs that address the historical under-representation of women in politics and public service, including the annual N.E.W. Leadership undergraduate program and the Pipeline to Politics initiative. She also contributes to the Center’s overall approach to civic education, providing leadership to programs such as community Scholars, which places undergraduate students in community-based internships so that they can develop professional experience and skills, gain insights in to the dynamics of community organizations, and learn how nonprofit organizations function and interact in the broader community.
Sheryl began her career as a professional photographer before entering the political and government sectors. She served on the executive staffs of the Oklahoma Senate Appropriations Chairman and Senate President Pro Tempore and was named Executive Director of a statewide legislative caucus organization. In this capacity she provided oversight of fundraising, campaign and policy strategies for majority members of the Oklahoma Senate. She has also worked with clientele throughout the United States as a strategic consultant, with a Washington DC and Florida-based public opinion research firm.
Most recently, she served as Communications Director for the City of Tulsa, Oklahoma and began a private media and public policy consulting firm that works with public and private sector clientele. She is a graduate of Leadership Tulsa and the US Department of Defense JCOC leadership program. She serves as President of the Gordon Cooper Technical Center Foundation and on the Board of Directors of the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation and the Jasmine Moran Children’s Museum.
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Cindy Simon Rosenthal is director and curator of the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center at The University of Oklahoma and professor of political science with a joint appointment to the women’s studies faculty. Professor Rosenthal has been a member of the Center faculty since 1998 and initially served as associate director, overseeing the Center’s undergraduate programs. Under her leadership, the Center developed its highly successful N.E.W. (National Education for Women’s) Leadership, a program to educate, inspire, and empower undergraduate women to enter public service and politics. N.E.W. Leadership has been honored six times by Oklahoma’s Journal-Record “Woman of the Year” celebration as a program “making a difference.”
Professor Rosenthal’s research and teaching interests focus on women in politics, public sector and legislative leadership, state government and intergovernmental relations, and public policy issues involving gender inequality. She is co-author (with Ronald M. Peters, Jr.) of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the New American Politics (Oxford University Press, 2010). She edited Women Transforming Congress (University of Oklahoma Press, 2002) and is the author of When Women Lead (Oxford University Press, 1998). In 1996, the Women and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association recognized her dissertation on institutional constraints and leadership styles of men and women in state legislatures as the best in the field of women in politics. Her work has also been recognized with the Sophonisba Breckinridge Award given for the best paper on women and politics at the Midwest Political Science Association meeting. She contributed chapters to The Oklahoma Almanac of Politics (1998, 1999), Women and Elective Office (1998, 2005), and Women in Higher Education: Empowering Change (2002). Her work also has appeared in Political Research Quarterly, Policy Studies Journal, Legislative Studies Quarterly, State Legislatures, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, and Women & Politics. She serves on the executive committee for the Legislative Studies Section of the American Political Science Association.
Among her awards and honors, Professor Rosenthal was named the Carlisle Mabrey and Lurleen Mabrey Presidential Professor, 2002 – 2007, and was named Outstanding Oklahoma Political Scientist of the Year in 2000 by the Oklahoma Political Science Association. In 2009, she received the Distinguished Public Service Award from the Oklahoma Chapter, American Society of Public Administration. She also received the Ursa Major Distinguished Alumnae Award from the Alpha Phi International Fraternity in 2010.
Professor Rosenthal holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University, a master’s in urban studies from Occidental College, and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Oklahoma. From 1975 until 1991, she worked extensively with state legislatures – first with Legis 50/ The Center for Legislative Improvement, later at the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), and then finally as a consultant with several states on various management, personnel, and training projects. She was on the NCSL senior management team and oversaw legislative management programs, state information services, and publications.
After serving three years on the city council of Norman, Oklahoma, she was elected mayor of Norman in 2007 and again in 2010.
Contact Cindy Simon Rosenthal at csrosenthal@ou.edu. Click here to visit Professor Rosenthal’s Web Site.
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Lauren Schueler is presently serving as a graduate assistant for the Women’s Leadership Initiative. She is in her first year of the Masters of Adult and Higher Education with a concentration in Intercollegiate Athletic Administration. Lauren earned a bachelor’s degree in anthropology attending the University of Central Florida where she was a member of the women’s rowing team. While at UCF Lauren made the dean’s list and achieved academic recognition from the NCAA. In the summer of 2009 Lauren interned at the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania gaining considerable insight into the areas of public policy and services.
Building on her own background as a student-athlete, her interest in the internal operation of athletic departments at the collegiate level, compliance with NCAA regulations and her experience with the Women’s Leadership Initiative, Lauren’s career goal is to help student athletes fully utilize their resources and steer them toward assuming strong leadership roles during their college years.
Lauren offers her unique understanding of society and culture in the effort to help break down the social stereotypes attached to women. Since beginning her work with WLI last year, it has become apparent to Lauren that women are a crucial part of the decision-making process that is currently under-represented. It is imperative that women work together to inspire one another for public service and leadership roles. Being involved with the WLI is an essential life-enriching experience for Lauren and all those she hopes to meet through the program.
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