Cindy Schipani, Elizabeth Duell and Carol Jacobsen will receive the 2010 Sarah Goddard Power Award and the Academic Women’s Caucus selection committee will present the Rhetaugh G. Dumas Progress in Diversifying Award to the Department of Psychology.
The 26th annual awards ceremony will take place at 4 p.m. Feb. 17 in the Michigan League Hussey Room.
Cindy Schipani. Photo courtesy Cindy Schipani.
Schipani, the Merwin H. Waterman Collegiate Professor of Business Administration, has worked at U-M since 1986. Colleagues describe her as “a dedicated teacher and scholar, who has devoted many years to the study and support of women.” At the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, her students have praised her support and participation. As a researcher, she has collaborated on work that correlates World Health Organization violence statistics and United Nations rankings of women’s meaningful involvement in the economy. At the university, she has been active in women’s issues, serving on the President’s Advisory Commission for Women’s Issues from 1999-2005, the Women’s Advisory Research and Mentoring Committee at the Ross School, and supporting events sponsored by the Ross School Women’s Initiative.
Elizabeth Duell. Photo by UM Photo Services, Lin Jones.
Duell, assistant professor of dermatology, is an educator, researcher, a longtime mentor of students and faculty, and a steady and quiet contributor to the promotion of women’s rights. Described by colleagues as a caring and exact teacher, she taught and worked with students at U-M for 30 years. Her research is painstaking and exact. She has published extensively in the areas of biochemistry and biology of the skin, co-winning, with Dr. John Voorhees, the Taub Award for Psoriasis Research in 1973, participating in the development of therapeutics for psoriasis, aging and cancer. She has chaired or been a member of numerous committees, served in many leadership roles in the Michigan Chapter of Sigma Xi, co-chaired or been a member of the Academic Women’s Caucus since its beginning, and chaired the Sarah Goddard Power Award Committee for many years.
Carol Jacobsen. Photo courtesy Carol Jacobsen
Jacobsen, professor of art and professor of women’s studies, is an artist, an activist, a teacher and an inspiration to others, colleagues say. As an artist and activist, she blends her work and her promotion of social justice, even as her art and her activism are recognized in their respective worlds. Her work has focused on the social issues of women’s criminalization and censorship, and has been recognized both in the art world and also in the world of activism. Her directorship of the Michigan Battered Women’s Clemency Project inspires and guides young feminist activists at U-M and elsewhere. She works to free women prisoners who have suffered abuse, incarceration and mistreatment, and to help them carry on under brutal conditions. She brings her work to the classroom and seminars, and also publishes articles, contacts newspapers and generally speaks out about these issues.
The Academic Women’s Caucus selection committee will present the Rhetaugh G. Dumas Progress in Diversifying Award to the Department of Psychology for its sustained commitment to diversity and for embedding diversity as a core value in its mission. The department is lauded for its ethnic and gender diversity within faculty members, and for its outreach in research and programs that address race, ethnic and gender issues. Much of this was achieved, organizers say, under the direction of former chair Patricia Gurin, who established a faculty committee to identify diverse scholars for recruitment and leveraged faculty positions by recruiting diverse faculty.
The Academic Women’s Caucus, founded in 1975 by women working to overcome inequity issues in the workplace, aims to support academic women and presents the Sarah Goddard Power Award to distinguished faculty and senior administrative staff (including instructors, lecturers, primary researchers, librarians and curators) affiliated with the university. Awardees are nominated based on their contribution to the betterment of women through scholarship, leadership and service.
The award was established by the Academic Women’s Caucus in memory of Sarah Goddard Power, a former regent who was a strong advocate for women within the university.
