The Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics is pleased to recognize the accomplishments and activities of its faculty, staff, students and alumni:
Dianne Bystrom, director emerita, led a break-out session via Zoom on “A Brief History of the 19th Amendment” at the annual meeting of the League of Women Voters of Greater Omaha on Aug. 1. On Aug. 25, she presented “The Long Road to the 19th Amendment” via WebEx for Bank of the West. On Aug. 26, Bystrom presented “The 19th Amendment and League of Women Voters at 100 Years” via Zoom to sophomores at Duchesne Academy of the Sacred Heart as part of the Omaha high school’s virtual celebration of Women’s Equality Day. On Sept. 6, she presented “A Century of Suffrage: Celebrating the 19th Amendment” at the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer in Grand Island, NE. On Sept. 16 and 17, Bystrom participated in a virtual visit to St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa, via WebEx to deliver the annual Folwell Lecture on Sept. 16 on “A Century of Suffrage: Celebrating the 19th Amendment”; talk to three classes on Sept. 16-17 on such topics as political movements and protests, barriers and political ambition and the women’s suffrage movement; and participate in a Constitution Day panel on Sept. 17 on voting rights.
The Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics was featured in the August issue of the Women in Higher Education newsletter.
Iowa State University was named to Washington Monthly’s America’s Best Colleges for Student Voting, 2020, in recognition of its student voter engagement efforts. Only 157 colleges and universities nationwide, and just five from Iowa, are included on this list. The Catt Center coordinates the university’s student voter registration and engagement initiatives.
Catt Center director Karen Kedrowski partnered with the Girls Scouts of Greater Iowa to create the Celebrating the History of Women’s Right to Vote Patch Program. Kedrowski was interviewed on Iowa Public Radio’s River to River with Jonathan Hassid, associate professor of political science, on July 29, and with Rachel Caufield, professor of political science at Drake University, on Aug. 19. She also co-authored the Aug. 5 article “Engaging Students In 2020: The Big XII Votes” in Forbes and recently joined the Iowa Department of Education’s Iowa History Advisory Council.
Katherine Marcheski, a 2014 graduate in journalism and mass communication and a Catt Center intern from 2012-2014, started a new position in July as assistant production office coordinator at Libolt Productions in Los Angeles, California.
Dave Peterson, Lucken Professor of Political Science at Iowa State University, co-authored a new book, “Ignored Racism: White Animus Toward Latinos,” with Mark Ramirez, associate professor of politics and global studies at Arizona State University. The book examines the history of hostility toward Latinos and how it influences attitudes about voting rights.
Douglas Schrock, professor and director of graduate studies for the Department of Sociology at Florida State University and winner of a 2003 Carrie Chapman Catt Prize for Women and Research, was co-author of two recently published articles: Valorizing Trump’s masculine self: Constructing political allegiance during the 2016 presidential election by Pierce Dignam, Douglas Schrock, Kristen Erichsen, Ben Dowd-Arrow, and Haley Gentile, published in Men & Masculinities; and Bitchifying Hillary: Trump supporters’ vilification of Clinton during the 2016 presidential election by Kristen Erichsen, Douglas Schrock, Ben Dowd-Arrow, and Pierce Dignam, published in Social Currents.
Kelly Winfrey, assistant professor in the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication and coordinator of research and outreach for the Catt Center, became a member of the American Forensics Association’s advising committee for the Commission on Presidential Debate’s DebateWatch Initiative. DebateWatch is a voter education program established in 1996 designed to bring people together to watch a debate, turn it off at the end (before commentary) and discuss what they saw and heard.