2011 Fall Conference Agenda

Friday, Oct. 28 – Business Attire

4:00 – 5:00 pm Registration Available ………………… Second Floor, Reynolds Alumni Center Check-in and pick up your materials before the conference begins. Visit with fellow members in the Great Room prior to the start of the conference.

5:00 – 6:45 pm Welcome & Conference Kickoff…………………………………...…. Great Room Presenters: Debbie Jones, Leigh Ann Taylor Knight, Cindy Frazier Kick-off the conference with a welcome and overview of the weekend’s agenda. You’ll hear from members on ways to maximize your Griffiths experience, learn more about our namesake, Martha Wright Griffiths, and participate in a networking activity.

7:00 – 9:00 pm Dinner with Your Mentor/Mentee…………………………………………..… Columns A&B Keynote Presenter: Liz Forkin Bohannon, BJ ’07, MA ‘09 Connect with your mentor/mentee and hear from Mizzou alum Liz Forkin Bohannon, founder of Sseko Designs. Liz will share her experience as a recent journalism graduate who found herself starting an international footwear company. Her story includes all the things she wished she knew, the hiccups along the way and the importance guidance, perseverance and risk-taking. Dinner will have assigned seating. You will find your table number on the bottom right corner of your nametag.

9:00 pm Sip and Shop………………………………………………………….Great Room Following the dinner, visit with Liz and other fellow members as you shop for a great cause at the Sseko Designs Trunk Show. Treat yourself to the dessert bar or an after-dinner drink while you pick out a pair of sandals!

Saturday, Oct. 29 – Black & Gold Business Casual Dress

8:30 – 9:45 am Networking Breakfast……………………….Columns A&B Presenter: Dr. Carolyn Henry Meet your mentor or mentee for breakfast to begin the day and prepare for the remainder of the conference. Dr. Caroline Henry, Professor of Oncology in the MU Department of Veterinary Medicine and Surgery, and the School of Medicine Director for the Tom and Betty Scott Endowed Program in Veterinary Oncology, will share her experiences and speak about the exciting things happening in MU’s College of Veterinary Medicine and the Mizzou Advantage initiative.

10:00 – 10:45 a.m. Breakout Session #1: Women in the Labor Force: Breaking through the Glass Ceiling…….……………Great Room Presenter: Dr. Joan M. Hermsen, Associate Professor of Sociology Just a decade ago scholars believed gender equality was inevitable. However, indicators as diverse as the employment rates of married mothers, the election of women to state offices, time spent in housework, occupational segregation, and public opinion about gender roles show that progress towards gender equality has stalled. In this session we will explore trends in women's progress and possible explanations for the stalled gender revolution.

Taking Charge of Your Finances…….…………….. Columns D&E Presenter: Janet Holt Janet L. Holt, MU Business School alum and Griffiths member, will discuss practical tips for managing your money. Janet brings her wealth of knowledge from 12 years as a Financial Advisor with Waddell & Reed in Overland Park, KS. Turning a notebook into a “Financial Organizer” Janet will show you how to gain control of your financial life. She will discuss budgeting, credit cards, saving for retirement, insurance, the stock market and helping your children to become financially independent.

10:45 – 11:00 am Break

11:00 – 11:45 am Breakout Session #2: Women in Politics..……………………...…Columns D&E Panel: Rep. Mary Still, Cheryl Dozier, and Rep. Donna Lichtenegger Take part in a conversation with Representative Still, one of the state representatives for Columbia, Cheryl Dozier, Director of the Black Legislative Caucus, and Representative Lichtenegger, representative for parts of Cape Girardeau and Perry Counties. You’ll have the chance to hear their stories, ask questions, and learn about how they’ve succeeded in politics, a traditionally male- dominated field.

Women in Science……………………………………………………Great Room Panel: Jennifer Dine, Kristen Peters, Dr. Tina Bloom Griffiths members Jennifer Dine and Kristen Peters and Dr. Tina Bloom will share their experiences as women in the field of science. You’ll have an opportunity to listen to their experiences as well as ask questions about how these women have succeeded in a field traditionally dominated by men.

11:45 am – Noon Break

Noon – 1:15 pm Lunch & Keynote Presentation……………………………… Columns A&B The Mercury 13 Keynote Presenter: Martha Ackmann Over lunch, learn about The Mercury 13, which tells the story of thirteen women pilots who secretly tested to become America’s first woman in space. Author and journalist Martha Ackmann will share their story with us. After Martha’s speech, you’ll have the chance to purchase a signed copy of the book.

1:30 – 3:00 pm Breakout Session #3 Students: Establish the “You” Brand Presenter: Laura Peiter, MU Career Center…………………………………………… Columns D&E “It’s who you know” is a common phrase when it comes to networking and job searching. However, it is difficult to know specific strategies to get yourself out there. Where do you network? How are you conveying your strengths and skills to those with whom you interact? Think about your individual career image, learn about making the most of current connections, and find ways to create new contacts that may lead to exciting opportunities. Remember to bring your resume with you to this session!

Alumnae: 1:30-2:20 pm Investigating Fascinating Women Presenter: Martha Ackmann……………………………………………Great Room Where do ideas for books come from? Join Martha Ackmann as she discusses the inside story of writing her award-winning book, "The Mercury 13," and her newest book, "Curveball: The Remarkable Story of , First Woman to Play Professional Baseball in the Negro League." Good ideas for books may be right in front of you. Find out how writers discover them. After the presentation, you’ll have the chance to purchase a signed copy of one of Martha’s books.

Alumnae: 2:30-3:00 pm………………………………………………….Great Room Admissions Overview Presenter: Barbara Rupp Barbara Rupp of the MU Admissions Office will share with alumnae the trends and highlights of Mizzou’s current and future students.

3:15 pm Closing Reception……………………………………………..………….Great Room Presenters: Carrie Bien and Debbie Jones Join us as we wrap up the weekend’s events with a Homecoming recap from MAA Staff Member Carrie Bien, and a quick glimpse of what’s in store for the Spring Conference. Enjoy some Tiger Stripe Ice Cream as you network with fellow Griffiths members one final time before heading home!

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Fall 2011 Conference Speakers

Cindy Frazier, Associate Executive Director, Mizzou Alumni Association

Cindy is involved with the overall business administration of the Association and is primarily responsible for the fiscal and human resource areas. She also works with the national budget and finance committee and supervises some of the programming areas.

Cindy received a bachelor’s degree in Education and a MBA with an emphasis in finance and accounting from Mizzou. Her husband Shawn is also a Mizzou graduate and received a degree in Accountancy. She and Shawn have one son, Dylan. Cindy and Shawn are lifetime members of the Mizzou Alumni Association.

Liz Forkin Bohannon, BJ ’07, MA ‘09 Founder, Sseko Designs

Liz Forkin Bohannon graduated from the University of Missouri with a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism and a Master’s degree in Strategic Communications. After graduating, she worked briefly in the Public Relations industry. In 2008, she moved to Uganda to assist in the communications efforts for a youth development organization based in Kampala. While there, Liz started Sseko Designs, a not-just-for profit company that provides employment and entrepreneurial training to women in East Africa. She now splits her time between Uganda and Portland, Oregon, where she and her husband Ben run Sseko. She is passionate about social justice and believes that the empowerment of women is a fundamental piece of working towards a more just and peaceful world.

Dr. Caroline Henry Director, Tom and Betty Scott Endowed Program in Veterinary Oncology

Henry has served as director of the Tom and Betty Scott Endowed Program in Veterinary Oncology since 2002. Under her leadership, the program became a charter member in the National Cancer Institute’s Comparative Oncology Trials Consortium and was named to the Canine Comparative Oncology and Genomics Consortium. Henry is past president of the Veterinary Cancer Society and president of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine Specialty of Oncology. She serves on the scientific peer review committee for the Institute for Clinical and Translational Science and is a member of MU’s Radiopharmaceutical Sciences Institute.

Dr. Henry serves as a Faculty Facilitator for the One Health/One Medicine Mizzou Advantage initiative where she fosters multidisciplinary educational and research opportunities between human and veterinary medicine and the basic sciences, both within the University of Missouri and with outside collaborators. (Continued)

Griffiths Leadership Society www.griffithsleadershipsociety.com Henry’s research focuses on comparative models of human disease, including canine bone, bladder, and prostate cancer, and on biomarker discovery and application for cancer screening and diagnosis. She earned a doctorate in veterinary medicine and master’s degrees from Auburn University and was on the faculty at Washington State University before coming to MU in 1997.

Joan Hermsen Chair, Department of Women’s and Gender Studies Associate Professor of Sociology University of Missouri

Joan Hermsen is the Chair of the Department of Women’s & Gender Studies and an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Missouri. Her research focuses primarily on gender inequalities in the U.S. labor market, including the gender wage gap, occupational gender segregation, and labor force participation. Also, she is affiliated with the MU Interdisciplinary Center for Food Security and is co-author of the Missouri Hunger Atlas and co-investigator of a multiyear study of health and obesity among food pantry clients.

Janet Holt Financial Advisor, Waddell & Reed Financial Services

Janet Holt grew up in Columbia, MO. As a child she was an avid reader of Ann Landers’ advice column, and kept an accounting ledger of her $40 bank account, which was earning compound interest. Today, she combines her interests in personal relationships and personal finance as a Financial Advisor for Waddell & Reed Financial Services in Overland Park, KS. Along the way, she swam for the University of Missouri Women's Swim team, and married her college sweetheart, Dave Holt, who ran track for Mizzou. Janet majored in Business, Dave majored in Engineering. They have two children, a daughter who has graduated from college, and a son who is a senior in college. Through Griffiths, Janet learned about the “Mizzou Botanic Garden project” and has been involved with several tribute benches.

Cheryl Dozier Executive Director, Missouri Black Legislative Caucus

Cheryl Dozier is the Executive Director of the Missouri Black Legislative Caucus, an organization representing African-American members of the Missouri Legislature. Currently there are three Senators and 14 Representatives in the caucus. Members of the Missouri Legislative Black Caucus collectively represent approximately 665,000 constituents throughout the State of Missouri. The Missouri Legislative Black Caucus, through legislation, strives to improve the quality of life for all citizens throughout the State of Missouri. Additionally Cheryl is C.E.O. of The Dozier Group, a Governmental and Public Relations, Marketing and Events Management consulting firm. The firm provides strategic advice and expertise to businesses, non-profits and other organizations on legislative, executive and political issues. The Dozier Group has supported and assisted in passing legislation relative to economic development, healthcare, education, the entertainment and film industry.

Representative Mary Still, BJ ‘76 District 25, Missouri State House of Representatives

Representative Mary Still represents part of Boone County (District 25) in the Missouri House of Representatives. Prior to her legislative duties, she served as senior policy adviser for Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon. Representative Still also served as director of communications for Governor Bob Holden from 2002 to 2004 and as director of communications for Attorney General Nixon from 1993 to 2002. She also served as director of the University of Missouri News Bureau from 1985 to 1993. Rep. Still received a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the University of Missouri School of Journalism in 1976. Still currently resides in Columbia with her husband, Russell. They have two daughters, Allison and Susannah.

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Representative Donna Lichtenegger District 157, Missouri State House of Representatives

Representative Lichtenegger represents portions of Cape Girardeau and Perry counties (District 157) in the Missouri House of Representatives. She was elected to her first two-year term November 2010. Her many years of public service include: 20 years as a member of the Republican Central Committee -ten of which she served as the Vice-chair; the Republican State Committeewoman from 1998 to 2010 for the 25th Senatorial District; Chair of the 32nd Judicial District for six years; ten years as Chair for the Eighth Congressional District. Representative Lichtenegger also has 37 years of experience as a dental hygienist. Her dental career includes membership with the Missouri Dental Hygiene Association; a 30-year membership with the American Dental Hygienist Association; four years Vice- Chair of the Southeast Missouri Dental Hygienist Association. Rep. Lichtenegger currently resides in Jackson with her husband, John. They have two children, Brent and Leigh Ann.

Kristen Peters Doctoral Candidate, Molecular Microbiology & Immunology & Veterinary Pathobiology Student Member, Griffiths Leadership Society

Kristin is a 6th year doctoral candidate in the Molecular Microbiology and Immunology and Veterinary Pathobiology department. She received her BS in Biology with an emphasis in Microbiology and Biotechnology and a minor in Chemistry from Missouri State University in December 2005 and began at Mizzou in June 2006. Her doctoral research has involved dissecting the function of the YopK protein of Yersinia pestis, the bacteria that causes plague, in the laboratory of Dr. Deborah Anderson, a female leader on campus and the director of the Laboratory for Infectious Disease Research. Her work is important in the field because plague is still a current disease in many areas, including most of Asia, India, Africa, and the southwest . Kristin will graduate in May 2012.

Jennifer Dine Doctoral Candidate, Sinclair School of Nursing Student Member, Griffiths Leadership Society

Jennifer Dine, BSN, RN, is a doctoral nursing student in the Sinclair School of Nursing at the University of Missouri. Jennifer’s research interests have included breast cancer survivorship in the United States and South Africa, traditional healing approaches to chronic illness, and breast cancer and lymphedema genetics. She is currently a Graduate Partnerships Program fellow with the National Institute of Nursing Research and working on her dissertation at the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Tina Bloom Assistant Professor, Sinclair School of Nursing

Dr. Bloom is an Assistant Professor at the University of Missouri Sinclair School of Nursing. Her research interests are centered on intimate partner violence and, in particular, development and testing of interventions to decrease violence exposures for women and children and thus decrease the long-term consequences of such violence for maternal-child health. She is particularly interested in testing interventions which reach underserved populations, such as rural women. (Continued)

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Dr. Bloom earned her BSN degree at the University of Kansas and her MPH and PhD from Oregon Health & Sciences University (OHSU). She has received intramural funding from the University of Missouri and extramural funding from the National Institute of Nursing Research, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Dr. Bloom is a member of the Nursing Network on Violence against Women, International and the Missouri Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence.

Martha Ackmann Author, The Mercury 13 and Curveball: The Remarkable Story of Toni Stone, First Woman to Play Professional Baseball in the Negro League

Martha Ackmann is a journalist, author and editor who writes about women who have changed America. Her columns have appeared in The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times and many other newspapers around the country. She has appeared on the Today Show, CNN, CBS, NPR and the BBC. Ackmann's books include "The Mercury 13: The True Story of Thirteen Women and the Dream of Space Flight" and "Curveball: The Remarkable Story of Toni Stone: First Woman to Play Professional Baseball in the Negro League." She is at work on a new book about poet . The recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Ackmann teaches at in Massachusetts. Martha Ackmann is a Missouri native and received her BA from Lindenwood College, her MA from Middlebury College and her Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts.

Laura Peiter Career Services Assistant, MU Career Center

Laura Peiter is the Career Services Assistant for the MU Career Center. Her main responsibilities are to provide support for online career services, outreach presentations, student employment, and various areas of training for our Career Specialist student staff. She is a graduate with an M.A. in Media Communications and B.A. in Media Literacy from Webster University in St. Louis.

Barbara Rupp Director, MU Office of Admissions

Barbara Rupp has been at Mizzou since 1997. Prior to becoming Director in 2004, she was also Associate Director and Assistant Director of Admissions. Her current duties include directing the planning, developing, and administering of all aspects of undergraduate admissions and recruiting and she is responsible also for all international admissions and for processing of admission to the schools of medicine, veterinary medicine, and law. Barbara received her bachelor’s degree in English from Marietta College in Marietta, Ohio, and her Master’s degree in Psychology from the State University.

Carrie Bien Coordinator, Student Programs, Mizzou Alumni Association

Carrie Bien is the coordinator of Student Programs for the Mizzou Alumni Association. She advises the Homecoming Steering Committee and the Alumni Association Student Board, both of which she was involved with as a student at Mizzou. Carrie graduated from Mizzou in 2009 with degrees in Journalism and Spanish.

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