Women in Politics: Symposium Participants 

Ruth Mandel is the Director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics and Professor of Politics at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. She is a Senior Scholar at Eagleton's Center for the American Woman and Politics (CAWP). Mandel writes and speaks widely about women and leadership, with particular emphasis on women as political candidates, women in office, women's political networks, and the gender gap.

Ruth Mandel holds numerous awards for her pioneering research, education and public service activities, including:

Mandel is a presidential appointee to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, the governing body of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, for which she serves as Vice Chairperson.

Established in 1956, the Eagleton Institute is a nationally recognized education, research and public service unit of Rutgers University. Eagleton conducts innovative and practical research, educates students, and informs policymakers and the public. The Institute includes two major research and public service centers, the Center for the American Woman and Politics and the Center for Public Interest Polling.

After her election to the New Hampshire Legislature in 1969, Susan McLane chaired the Ways and Means Committee and the Executive Departments and Administration Committee. She was elected to the New Hampshire Senate in 1979 and again in 1981. During her thirteen years in the New Hampshire State Senate, she chaired the Health and Human Services Committee and the Ways and Means Committee.

Susan McLane has chaired the Republican Women's Task Force, and she is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Women's Campaign Fund. She has served on the Boards of the New Hampshire Council on World Affairs, the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, and the Center for Policy Alternatives, and attended the Republican Convention as an at-large delegate. In 1994, Network Publications named her the Most Powerful Woman in New Hampshire.

Linda Melconian currently serves at the Assistant Majority Leader in the Massachusetts State Senate, representing the Hampden District of Springfield. She served as Chief Legislative Assistant and Assistant Counsel to Thomas O'Neill in his position as the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Prior to her election to the State Senate, Linda Melconian was the Hampden County Prosecuting Attorney.

She is a member of the Hampden County Democrats, Democratic Women in Massachusetts, the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP, the Massachusetts Bar Association and the Mount Holyoke Club of Greater Springfield. She is a former Democratic State Committeewoman and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Salvation Army and the Ella T. Grasso Foundation.

As a State Senator representing Waldo County in Maine, Susan Longley chairs the Judiciary Committee and is a member of the State and Local Government and Health and Human Services Committees. Before establishing her own law practice in 1989, Longley was a Legislative Researcher for Senator George Mitchell (ME) and an International Refugee Worker in Kenya.

Susan Longley has received the Conservation Champion Award (1995, 1997) for her leadership on environmental issues and legislation; a State Leadership Award (1997) for her outreach to Maine high school students; and the Courage Award (1998) for impact on state policy through personal acts of courage and commitment to reproductive rights. She serves on the Boards of several children's education and mental health foundations.

Nita Lowey represents New York in the U.S. House of Representatives. She was first elected to the House in 1988. Lowey is a member of the House Appropriations Committee. She sits on the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Subcommittee, which funds federal health research, education, and worker safety and retraining programs, and on the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs. Lowey has emerged as the Appropriations Committee's leading advocate of biomedical and breast cancer research, women's and preventive health programs, aid to Israel, worker retraining initiatives, and educational reform.

Lowey was elected to co-chair the bipartisan Congressional Women's Caucus, and chairs the House Pro-Choice Task Force. Lowey is a member of the Democratic Leadership Advisory Group and serves as a Minority Whip At-Large. She is also a member of the Presidential Glass Ceiling Commission.

Back to Women in Politics Page