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Commision Co-Chairs:
Ann Lewis
Beth Newburger
Commission Members:
Johnnetta B. Cole
J. Michael Cook
Barbara Goldsmith
LaDonna Harris
Gloria Johnson
Elaine Kim
Ellen Ochoa
Irene Wurtzel
Anna Roosevelt
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Memeber Biographies:
Ms. Ann Lewis
currently serves as Counselor to President Clinton at the White
House. Ms. Lewis also Co-Chairs the President's Commission on the Celebration
of Women in American History, and Chairs the U.S. Government Working Group
for the Women 2000: Beijing Plus Five Special Session of the General Assembly.
Ms. Lewis joined the White House Staff in January 1997 as Deputy Communications
Director, and served as Director of Communications from May 1997 through
March 1999.
During the 1996 Clinton-Gore Re-Election Campaign, Ms.
Lewis served as a Deputy Campaign Manager and Director of Communications.
From 1994 to 1995, Ms. Lewis was the Vice President for
Public Policy at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, where she
was responsible for policy, legal and communications initiatives. She has
also run two public affairs consulting companies, Politics, Inc. and Ann
F. Lewis, Inc.
Other positions Ms. Lewis has held include her tenures
as the National Director of Americans for Democratic Action and as the Political
Director for the Democratic National Committee. She also served as Chief
of Staff to then-Congresswoman Barbara Mikulski.
In 1992, Ms. Lewis led a study group for the Institute
of Politics at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. The
title of the seminar was "Going First: Women as Leaders in Contemporary
Politics."
Ms. Lewis traveled to Austria in August 1999 to deliver
a keynote address to the European Forum Alpbach Media Talks, where she also
participated in a "Media and Election Campaigns" working group.
In September 1999, Ms. Lewis was part of the official U.S. delegation to
the Vital Voices "Dawn of a New Millennium" Conference held in
Reykjavik, Iceland.
Ms. Lewis worked on the "South African Project,"
preparing for the first-ever democratic elections. Ms. Lewis also assisted
with other training seminars for political leaders in Eastern Europe.
In 1998, Ms. Lewis participated in the First International
Jewish Feminist Conference in Jerusalem. She has traveled to the Persian
Gulf in a delegation led by Reverend Jesse Jackson as well as to Bonn, Germany
for a conference on women's issues.
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Ms. Beth Newburger
is the General Services Administration's
Associate Administrator for Communications and chief spokesperson of the
agency. Before joining GSA, Ms. Newburger was outreach coordinator at the
White House Office of Women's Initiatives and Outreach. Between 1984 and
1995, Ms. Newburger founded and was President and CEO of OWLCAT, Inc. and
Corabi Internal Telemetrics, Inc. She has also served as Marketing Manager
at the Washington Post and Publisher of the Washington Woman Magazine.
Ms. Newburger is currently Chairman of the Board of the Capital Children's
Museum and is a member of the Board of Directors of BOAT/U.S. and Arena
Stage.
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Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole, of Atlanta, Georgia, is President Emerita, Spelman College and
Presidential Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Women's Studies and
African American Studies at Emory University. Also an active author, Dr.
Cole has written and edited several textbooks in use today. Her most recent
book is Dream the Boldest Dreams: And Other Lessons of Life. She
serves on the Board of Trustees of The Rockefeller Foundation and Galludet
University and on the Advisory Board of The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center
for Nonviolent Social Change. Dr. Cole also serves on the board of the Center
for Research on Women at Wellesley College and is a Fellow of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a Director of Merck & Co., Coca-Cola
Enterprises, and Home Depot. Dr. Cole has received numerous awards, including
honorary degrees from 41 colleges and universities and the first Eleanor
Roosevelt Education Award on the occasion of the 75th Anniversary of the
Women's National Democratic Club.
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Mr. J. Michael Cook, of Greenwich, Connecticut, is the Chairman and CEO of Deloitte
& Touche. He originally joined the firm in 1964, and became a partner
in 1974. Mr. Cook is also a Member of the Executive Committee of the Securities
Regulation Institute, the Conference Board, and the U.S. Council for International
Business. In the public sector, Mr. Cook is Chairman of the Board of Governors
of the United Way of America and Chairman of the Board of Catalyst, the
nation's leading organization for the advancement of women in business.
In 1994, he was given the Director's Choice Award by the National Women's
Economic Alliance Foundation.
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Dr. Barbara Goldsmith, of New York, New York, is an author and historian. Her latest
book, Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism, and the Scandalous
Victoria Woodhull is now being taught in Women's Studies at Yale, Princeton
and Harvard, etc. Her other books include Johnson v. Johnson, Little
Gloria ... Happy at Last, and The Straw Man. Dr. Goldsmith
was a Founding and Contributing Editor of New York magazine and Senior
Editor of Harper's Bazaar. During her successful literary career,
She has been the recipient of numerous book awards and doctorate degrees.
She is a national leader in the Preservation and Conservation of the written
word and a devoted Human Rights advocate. Among her public service memberships,
she served on the New York State Council on the Arts, is a Trustee of the
New York Public Library, and served on the President's Commission for Preservation
and Access.
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Ms. LaDonna Harris,
of Bernalillo, New Mexico, is the President of Americans for Indian Opportunity.
An enrolled member of the Comanche Nation, Ms. Harris is an ardent advocate
for American Indians. For more than three decades, she has served as a national
leader for the advancement of basic human rights for all Americans as an
active participant in the civil rights, environmental, women's and world
peace movements. Ms. Harris was a founding member of the National Urban
League and Common Cause. She was an original convener of the first Women's
Political Caucus and helped organize the Global Tomorrow Coalition and Women
for Meaningful Summits. During her career, Ms. Harris has served on many
national boards, such as Girl Scouts USA, National Organization of Women,
Save the Children, and the Independent Sector. She has founded several influential
Native American organizations, including the National Indian Housing Council,
the Council of Energy Resource Tribes and the National Tribal Environmental
Council. She also served on other Presidential commissions, including Carter's
Commission on Mental Health and Johnson's National Council on Indian Opportunity.
She was appointed by President Clinton to the American Indian Arts Board,
by Vice President Gore to the Advisory Council on the National Information
Infrastructure and by Secretary of Energy O'Leary to the Secretary of Energy
Advisory Board.
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Ms. Gloria T. Johnson, of Camp Springs, Maryland, has served as President of the Coalition
of Labor Union Women since 1993. She has also served for the past ten years
as Chair of the IUE Women's Council and Director of the Union's Department
of Social Action. Ms. Johnson was elected a Vice-President of the AFL-CIO
in 1993, to become the second African American woman to ever hold that position,
and is a member of the AFL-CIO Executive Council. A long-time advocate of
women's and civil rights, Ms. Johnson has received several awards, including
the PUSH Award for Outstanding Women in the Labor Movement and the NAACP's
First Annual Pathway to Excellence Award "Women of Labor." She
has represented the American Labor Movement on labor and women's issues
at many international conferences, including Africa, Taiwan, Japan, Haiti,
Brazil, Israel and Europe. Ms. Johnson was appointed by President Carter
to serve on the National Advisory Council on Vocational Education.
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Dr. Elaine H. Kim,
of Oakland, California, is a Professor of Asian American Studies and former
Chair of the Comparative Ethnic Studies Department and former Associate
Dean of the Graduate Division at the University of California, Berkeley.
In addition to teaching, Dr. Kim has written and co-authored numerous works
including Asian American Literature: An Introduction to the Writings
and Their Social Context and East to America: Korean American Life
Stories. She has also been active in television, as the Associate Producer
for Slaying the Dragon: Asian Women in U.S. Television and as Co-Producer
of Sa-I-gu: From Korean Women's Perspectives. Dr. Kim served as President
of the Association for Asian American Studies and as a member of the National
Council of the American Studies Association. She is a Co-Founder and member
of the Board of Directors of the Asian Women United of California and a
Co-Founder of Asian Immigrant Women Advocates.
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Dr. Ellen Ochoa,
of Houston, Texas, is a Mission Specialist Astronaut at the NASA Johnson
Space Center. Dr. Ochoa joined NASA in 1988 and assumed her astronaut role
in 1990. Her flight mission assignments have been as Mission Specialist/Flight
Engineer on the STS-96 mission to the International Space Station in May/June
1999, Payload Commander on STS-66 atmospheric research flight in November,
1994, responsible for all science payloads and robotic arm operator; and
as Mission Specialist on STS-56 atmospheric research flight in April 1993,
responsible for primary science payload and robotic arm operator. Her current
technical assignment is spacecraft communicator in Mission Control Center.
Additionally, Dr. Ochoa has delivered more than 120 talks for schools and
educational groups on astronaut careers, space science experiments and the
importance of education, and logged over 600 hours flight time in jet aircraft.
Before joining NASA, Dr. Ochoa worked for Sandia National Laboratories.
She has received numerous awards, including several NASA Space Flight Medals,
The Hispanic Heritage Leadership Award, the Women in Aerospace Outstanding
Achievement Award and the Albert Baez Award for Outstanding Technical Contribution
to Humanity from Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards. Dr. Ochoa
is a Member of the Stanford University Board of Trustees and the Board of
Directors of the Manned Space Flight Education Foundation, Inc.
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Ms. Irene Wurtzel is a playwright, free lance writer, and teacher of playwrighting, as well as a community
activist. She is a winner of the Margo Jones Playwriting award, the Jane Chambers award for outstanding woman
playwright, and a Cine award for a documentary film script on the history of the American labor movement. Her
four plays have appeared on and off-Broadway, regional theater and in England. ONWARD VICTORIA, a
musical based on the life of feminist Victoria Woodhull, is available on compact disc. A new play has just had its
first reading at the Mint Theatre in New York.
As a community activist, she is vice-president of the board of trustees of Arena Stage, where she chairs the
board's education and community outreach efforts. She is former chairman of the board of the Family and
Children's Trust Fund of Virginia, a governor appointed commission aimed at preventing domestic violence and
child abuse in Virginia.
Internationally, she is a board member of ENTERPRISE WORKS WORLDWIDE,a non-profit organization
whose mission is to end poverty by working with small producers in Africa, Asia and Latin America to create
profitable and environmentally sustainable business development opportunities.
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Ms. Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, of Wilmette, Illinois, is a granddaughter of Franklin and Eleanor
Roosevelt. Following graduation from Stanford and the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ms. Roosevelt served on the faculty of Western
Kentucky University, teaching museum studies and working on the staff of
The Kentucky Museum for eight years. She moved to Chicago in 1983 as a freelance
collection consultant. Feeling the tug of her family's roots, in 1987, Ms.
Roosevelt became actively involved in politics, serving as the Manager of
Senator Paul Simon's Chicago office and his 1990 re-election campaign. Currently,
she is the Director of the Mayor's Office of Program Development for the
City of Chicago and serves on the Boards of the March of Dimes Birth Defects
Foundation, The White House Fellows Selection Committee, and the Cardinal
Bernardin Center. In addition to these roles, Ms. Roosevelt is the Chairman
of the Roosevelt Warm Springs Foundation and Vice President of the Franklin
and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute in New York.
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