Courier Focus 2016

7/25/2019 Courier Focus 2016

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Pilgrim Place hires first woman CEOPAGE 4

A few words from HMC president Marie KlawePAGE 14

Be sure to see our slideshow of Claremont’s female power players at claremont-courier.com

F CO USUnique women of Claremont

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tireless

leaders

Distinctive women,

Enid Douglass

aire McDonald

ann Ring

Cour er il remont

claremont-courier.com

January 2016

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Diversity and STEMHMC led by mathematician, computer scientist Marie Klawe.

Pilgrim Place’s new CEORetirement community hires first woman president.

Getting things doneClaremont has a history of distinctive female leaders.F CO US

Unique women of Claremont




Ann Schiff, the newly appointedCEO of Pilgrim Place, is makingsure the retirement community

will thrive well into the next 100 years.Ms. Schiff, who is Jewish, is the first woman to be

the President/CEO and the first head administrator

who doesn’t belong to the United Church of Christ.Despite the notable distinction, Ms. Schiff—who

began her post on January 11—insists it will have lit-tle bearing on how she’ll lead the community.

“Everybody has been accepting and they’ve wel-comed me,” Ms. Schiff said. “They had choices and Iwas the one they selected. So I’m sure it’s just a timefor some change here at Pilgrim Place, not major

things but maybe a different point of view.”A Washington, DC native, Ms. Schiff was previ-

ously the executive director of Ingleside at Rock Creek, a retirement community outside the nation’scapital that, like Pilgrim Place, started out as a Pres-

byterian community but evolved over time to acceptnondenominational residents.

“It was a lot of foreign service, a lot of people whohad been ambassadors, a lot of people who devotedtheir lives to public service,” Ms. Schiff said of In-gleside’s residents. “And a lot of them felt like Wash-ington would be a great home base when they retired,which made sense because they were used to placeswhere things were happening and they’re involved in

politics. So a lot of similarities to Pilgrim Place.”

Ms. Schiff first got involved in senior care after finishing her master’s degree in health services ad-ministration at The George Washington University.She gravitated toward her career in part because of her family history, which boasts several generationsof descendants who lived to reach 100 years old.

She chose administration, she says, because of the

big impact one can make and the opportunity toreach many different areas of senior care.

In all, she has been in her field for 35 years.“Dealing with seniors to me is a joy,” Ms. Schiff

said. “Not too many people end up working in a fieldthey went to school for.”

Pilgrim Place recently celebrated its centennial inDecember, and Ms. Schiff noted she is looking to-ward the future.

“I’ve been talking with the board and sayingwe’ve been here for 100 years…we want to makesure we’re here in perpetuity,” Ms. Schiff said.

This means working to the best of her abilities toensure that the essence of Pilgrim Place will continue.

“It’s much harder these days to keep single-sitecommunities going,” Ms. Schiff said. “It doesn’tmean you can’t. But you have to do your strategic

planning and looking at where we’ve been and wherewe want to be in five years, ten years, 100 years sothat it’s always available to people.”

But she knows she has a few challenges in theyears ahead, especially when an entire generation israpping at the door of retirement age.

Pilgrim Place appoints first female president

PILGRIM PLACE/ next page




COURIER photo/Steven FelschundneffAnn Schiff, who has just taken over as president and CEO of Pilgrim Place, has 35 years of experience leading similar institutions. Most recently, the Washington, DC nativewas executive director of Ingleside at Rock Creek.




“Baby Boomers will be coming, and everythingyou read about Baby Boomers is that for the major-ity of them, they kind of live for today and willworry about tomorrow later, so they won't have thesame kind of resources as their parents did,” Ms.Schiff said. “And looking at how we incorporatethose individuals who will want to and need to be ata community like Pilgrim Place, how do we plan

for that?”In the meantime, Ms. Schiff is settling nicely in theClaremont area. She is looking to close on a house innorth La Verne, 15 minutes from Pilgrim Place(Coming from her daily commute on the DC Belt-way, Ms. Schiff is looking forward the short drive).Her husband, Steve, is in the middle of closing his

practice and moving to California with her.In fact, Ms. Schiff got a true California welcome

during her first few days in Claremont.“The first day that I got here, it was pouring rain

and they warned me there was a drought,” Ms. Schiff said. “And then there was a minor earthquake. And Iwas like, ‘terrific!’”

Earthquakes aside, Ms. Schiff has found a lot tolike about the City of Trees, remarking that thequaintness of the Village reminds her of New Eng-

land towns she is more familiar with. She hasquickly taken a liking to the Pilgrims, and marvelsat how involved they are in nearly every facet of local culture.

“That was one of the things that attracted me tohere—these residents go and protest for peace andstuff like that, and they're involved with the colleges

because they believe in training the next generationso that, hopefully, we can have fewer wars and inci-dents so we can have a better planet,” Ms. Schiff said. “They're very involved with keeping the com-munity green. It’s not exactly what people see on TVas what retirement is.”

In her first month at Pilgrim Place, Ms. Schiff hasrelaxed into a job she feels is beneficial for her andfor the community she serves.

“I think it's going to be a good fit,” she said. “Al-

ready, I feel like I'm at home, and it's a nice thing.”

—Matthew [email protected]

PILGRIM PLACE/ from previous page

COURIER photo/Steven FelschundneffAnn Schiff is in her second week as the

new president and CEO of Pilgrim Place.Ms. Schiff, who replaces longtime presi-

dent Bill Cunitz, is the first woman andfirst person who is not a UCC minister to

run the retirement community.




The center for Innovation and Entre-

preneurship will present a paneldiscussion titled “Women in the

World of High Tech: Voices from Silicon Val-ley” at the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeumat Claremont McKenna College on Monday,

February 1 from 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m.The Athenaeum is located at 385 E. Eighth St. in

Claremont. For information, call (909) 621-8244The panelists, all recent CMC grads at various ca-

reer stages, are in high-profile jobs in prestigiousfirms in Silicon Valley and the Bay Area. Panelistswill discuss a broad array of topics including: prepa-ration for careers in tech, how to leverage past ac-complishments and personal and professionalnetworks to develop careers in tech, obstacles andchallenges faced in the competitive and male-domi-nated culture of Silicon Valley and approaches for

problem-solving, including work/life balance issues.The moderator, Frederick Lynch, focuses his teach-

ing and research on policy issues pertaining to in-equality, workforce and occupational trends and iscurrently studying how Silicon Valley and the hightech industry are responding to demands for greater workforce diversity.

Candace Adelberg grew up in California and graduatedCMC in 2010 with degrees in economics and math. After college, Ms. Adelberg moved to Washington, DC to work at the Federal Reserve Board, where her research focusedon macroeconomic forecast modeling and monetary pol-icy. A few years later, she moved back to California towork at Google, as part of the Counter-Abuse Technologyteam, where she currently spends her time fighting Inter-net “bad guys.” Outside of work, Ms. Adelberg is an avidultimate-Frisbee player and rock-climber.

Kristie Howard is a software engineer with a passionfor creating great end-to-end user experiences and em-

powering women in the technology industry. Ms.

Howard graduated in May 2015 with a bachelor’s incomputer science from Columbia University and a

bachelor’s in management/engineering from ClaremontMcKenna College.

During her time at CMC, Ms. Howard was a varsityswimmer, a math tutor, a WOA! leader and the direc-tor of tour guides. While at Columbia, she was an ac-tive member of Women in Computer Science, led aLean In Circle for Women in Tech and co-taught theinaugural class of Girls Who Code @ CU. Upon grad-uation, Ms. Howard spent the summer teaching 20high school girls at the Intel site of Girls Who Code’sSummer Immersion Program, a seven-week intensive

program for building computer science and program-ming knowledge, as well as increasing public speak-ing, networking and technical presentation skills. InAugust, she started as a software engineer at Docker,Inc., a San Francisco startup that creates building andshipping applications. She is currently working on theDocker Hub team as a frontend engineer writingJavaScript, React and HTML/CSS, and draws on her

prior experience as a product management intern atIntuit and Atlassian. If she’s not writing or teachingcode, Ms. Howard loves to hike, spin, dance, paint andexplore San Francisco restaurants.

Mayumi Matsuno is director of product at ElectricImp, a cloud service and hardware solution that makesit simple to connect devices to the Internet. The ElectricImp platform features fully integrated hardware, soft-ware, OS, APIs, cloud services and security, providingyour devices with intelligence, scalability and flexibil-ity. She is an alumna of Mozilla, Google and Deloitte.Ms. Matsuno earned her bachelor’s in environmentalethics and policy from Claremont McKenna Collegeand her master’s in management science and engineer-ing from Stanford University.

Jacinth Sohi is a product support manager at Uber, spe-cializing in scaling the infrastructure and launching sup-

port operations for new products like UberEATS anduberPOOL. Previously, she built the foundations forUber’s global customer support organization and was asenior community manager, where she started and grewthe San Francisco Community Operations team as wellas managed support strategies for the West Coast. Shealso spent time in city operations: launching uberX inthe South Bay, developing marketing partnerships anduser acquisition strategies for the Bay Area and workingon rider funnel conversion campaigns.

Before joining Uber in February 2013, Ms. Sohi wasa content and user education specialist at Google whereshe owned content management strategies for Geo

products including Google+ Local, Google Places andGoogle Earth. She created in-product help tutorials, au-thored content for help centers and edited the Googleand Your Business Blog.

Originally from Madison, Wisconsin, Ms. Sohimoved to California to attend Claremont McKennaCollege, where she majored in philosophy, politicsand economics (PPE) with a double major in eco-

nomics and a leadership sequence, graduating in 2011At CMC, she was student manager of the Rose Insti-tute and focused on legal analysis research with Pro-fessor Kenneth Miller. She was also president of CMCMock Trial and a Robert Day Scholar.

The panel moderator, sociologist Frederick R. Lynch,a CMC associate professor of government. He focusesmuch of his teaching and research on policy issues per-taining to inequality, workforce and occupational trends,health care and social and demographic change. His mostrecent book is One Nation Under AARP: The FightOver Medicare, Social Security and America’s Fu-ture (2011). His previous books include The DiversityMachine (1997; revised paperback 2001) and InvisibleVictims: White Males and the Crisis of AffirmativeAction (1989; revised paperback 1991). Mr. Lynch iscurrently studying how Silicon Valley and the high tech

industry are responding to demands for greater work-force diversity.

Panel discussion to focus on ‘Women in the World of High Tech’



Pat Samuelson, Realtor 909-214-1002 Realty One Group BRE# 01733616 www.SamuelsonRealEstate.com

As a businesswomanand mother of twodaughters in Clare-

mont, I am invested inwomen and their futures.That is why I decided toget involved with Cross-roads for Women—firstas a volunteer and nowas a board member.

Crossroads is a non-profit organization that

assists formerly incarcer-ated women to achieveself-sufficiency. The goalof Crossroads is to em-

power women as they exitthe prison system and be-come contributing mem-bers of the community.

I’m pleased to announce a unique opportunity to meet some of thegraduates of Crossroads. A Stinger Dinner will be held on March 12th. Whatis a Stinger Dinner? Alumni will demonstrate how they cooked in prison byusing “stingers” (immersion heaters). In order to keep this experiencepersonal, seating will be limited. Please contact Crossroads at 909-626-7847for more information.

The presence of Crossroads in Claremont greatly enriches our community bybroadening our diversity in perspectives, life experience and worldviews. I'mproud to live and work in Claremont, a community that has been so supportiveof this organization.

Our focus for this spe-cial edition of theCOURIER is, of

course, women. It wouldn’t becomplete without consideringClaremont’s women of the past—some have moved awayand some have died, but manyare still here, working to main-tain the high quality of life inClaremont.

Since Linda Elderkin’s retirementfive years ago, a woman hasn’t servedon the Claremont City Council. With acanceled election last year and no elec-tion set until March of 2017, it seemsfitting to consider the contributions of Claremont’s women.

In 1946, an attorney named Charlotte Neely became the first woman electedto the Claremont City Council. Ms.

Neely, according to Judy Wright’s book Claremont Women: 1887 to 1950,

joined efforts with Phillip and Ruth Or-dway to secure funding to build Me-morial Park.

The first bond measure effort— which included the construction of aswimming pool—failed, Ms. Wrightnoted. The swimming pool was ex-cluded on a second effort by Ms. Neely,

the Ordways and Ruth Iredell, a park committee member, and the bondmeasure passed. Construction of Me-morial Park soon followed and has be-

come the central meeting place for summer concerts in the park, the city’sFourth of July celebration and is hometo Claremont Heritage.

We can’t imagine what Claremontwould look like without the leadershipand effort of women.

COURIER file photoThe Claremont City Council circa 1995. From left: Suzan Smith, Judy Cody, Algrid Leiga, Diann Ring and Judy Wright.

LEADERSHIP/ next page

Community, council, change: Claremont’s leading ladiesFOCUS/Unique Women of Claremont 2016 8




DIANN R INGDiann Ring was first elected to the council in 1986,

served as mayor from 1992 to 1994 and remained onthe council until 1998. She had previously served onthe planning commission and was active with theClaremont League of Women Voters. A Texas nativeand enthusiastic chef, Ms. Ring arrived in Claremontwith her husband and two small children in 1973.

BERTYE SMITHBertye Smith first elected to council in 1970 and served

until 1978. In 1977, Ms. Smith was the first mayor tospeak at Willard Hunter’s Speakers’ Corner on the Fourthof July—a tradition that has continued each year.

LINDAELDERKIN

A resident of Claremont for almost 40 years, LindaElderkin was a planning commissioner and president of the League of Women Voters before she made her first

bid for council in 2007, earning 20 percent of the vote.Ms. Elderkin has been active in many aspects of the

Claremont community including serving as a dean atthe Claremont Colleges and as president of the Clare-mont Little League.

During her 2007 bid, Ms. Elderkin said her first pri-ority as a councilmember would be to work towards

building a “unified council who work together well andcordially.”

Ms. Elderkin received a PhD from Claremont Grad-uate University and later became Associate Dean of Students at both Pitzer and Pomona College.

Ms. Elderkin offered two additional reasons for seek-ing a council seat.

“One because I love Claremont…it is so worth the

LEADERSHIP/ from previous page


Bertye Smith




time, the energy, the effort,” she said.“And second, I believe that we havereached a pivotal moment in the history of our city, one where we need to recommitto making decisions in the context of our long-term visions and to listening to all thevoices in the community.”

ENID DOUGLASS

Elected to the Claremont city council in1978, Ms. Douglass served as mayor from1982 until 1986 and, among other signifi-cant contributions, played an instrumentalrole in the formation of the city’s new gen-eral plan in 1980 and in the establishmentof a historic preservation program.

Ms. Douglass also served on the Clare-mont Planning Commission from 1971 to78 as well as on the advisory committeesfor Claremont’s Land Development, Parksand Capital Improvement Projects.

In 1948, Ms. Douglass graduated magnacum laude from Pomona College, whereshe was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Dur-ing college, she met a fellow student, thelove of her life, Malcolm Paul Douglass,who had just returned from World War II

service. They married on August 28, 1948.Ms. Douglass, who was described as a

“brilliant idealist and visionary who ledClaremont through significant planningand legislation changes,” died in 2008 atthe age of 81.

“She was very intelligent and had agreat vision for Claremont. She alwaystook us back to principles when talkingabout planning decisions, not planning for the moment or planning to make someonehappy,” said Claremont’s mayor from1986 to 1989, the late Judy Wright, whoreferred to Ms. Douglass as “Ms. Planningfor Claremont.”

JUDY WRIGHT

Within a few weeks of coming toClaremont, Judy Wright became a mem-

ber of the League of Women Voters anddeveloped a number of lifelong friend-ships. She served as League presidentfrom 1975 to 1977 and was active in theSycamore Elementary School ParentFaculty Association, including serving asits president.

Her scope of activities quickly en-

larged to the community as a whole asshe was named to the city planning com-mission in 1977. She subsequently ranfor a seat on the city council, where sheserved for 13 years. She was mayor for three years from 1986 to 1989.

As a member of the Pilgrim Place Cor- poration, for more than three decadesMs. Wright was a loyal volunteer at the

annual Pilgrim Place Festival.She served as president of the Southern

Division of the California League of Cities. She served on the founding

boards of both Metrolink and FoothillTransit, and was instrumental in the

preservation of the Claremont Depot andthe establishment of Claremont being astop for the Metrolink train system. Be-fore her death in 2012, Ms. Wright

helped with the future planning for theeventual construction of the Gold Lineelectric rail system linking Claremont tothe San Gabriel Valley.

Ms. Wright was author of three bookson Claremont history—two editions ofClaremont Pictorial History andClaremont Women: 1887-1970: TheyCreated a Culture.

ELLEN TAYLOR

Ellen Taylor has a long history of serv-ice with the Claremont community andlocal League of Women Voters, first as-suming the role of president in 1992. Todate, she has served three terms as pres-ident of the local board as well as taking

positions on the state LWV board. She



Former mayors Peter Yao and Ellen Taylor




has notably been a part of numerous local studies, in-cluding topics such as affordable housing, health needsof Claremont Unified School District students and localfinances. Ms. Taylor has also contributed on the locallevel by serving on the Claremont City Council and asClaremont mayor and as a board member of the Clare-mont Museum of Art.

In her campaign literature for her bid for council in2005, Ms. Taylor was quoted as saying, “I have opin-

ions that the powers that be don’t agree with. I’venever been afraid to express my opinions.”

Ms. Taylor was elected to the council in 2005, wasappointed mayor in 2007 and served until 2009.

K AREN R OSENTHALKaren Rosenthal spent six years on the Parkways

and Tree Commission before joining the architecturalcommission for seven years and the planning com-mission for eight. She has sat on the council for sixyears, which is technically three terms. Her first term,however, began in March 1997 after CouncilwomanJudy Cody departed in fall 1996.

Ms. Rosenthal served as mayor from March 1999 toMarch 2001, assuming the position just in time todeal with the fallout of both the shooting of Irvin Lan-drum, Jr. and the Keck Graduate Institute’s plans to

build its campus on a portion of the Bernard Biolog-ical Field Station.

Ms. Rosenthal also represents Claremont on theRoute 30 Corridor Design Authority, the SouthernCalifornia Association of Governments’ RegionalCouncil, the SCAG Transportation and Communica-tions Committee and the California Contract CitiesAssociation and sits on the board of Tri-City MentalHealth Center.

She has served on the board of the Claremont Com-

munity Foundation and worked with Foothill Coun-try Day School, the Webb Schools of California andMt. San Antonio Gardens. She is a member of theLeague of Women Voters, the Claremont Chamber of

Commerce, Scripps College Fine Arts Foundation,Friends of the Claremont Public Library and Friendsof Oak Park Cemetery.



Karen Rosenthal in May 1979. She later became the mayor of Claremont in 1999




SANDYBALDONADO

Sandy Baldonado completed Clare-mont Graduate University’s teachinginternship program, which led toteaching at Vista Elementary Schoolfrom 1966 to 1972.

Ms. Baldonado served two termson the Claremont City Council,holding the mayoral seat from 2004to 2006.

Having previously served threeterms on the San Gabriel MunicipalWater Board, she brought expertise

on the subject—and many others—to council deliberations and iskeenly interested in the water de- bate happening right now.

In a 2012 interview with theCOURIER, Ms. Baldonado ex- pressed dismay that the council iscurrently comprised of all men.

“I’m not at all happy about that,”she said. She is pleased, however,that Claremont seems to be out ofwhat she called the “doldrums.’”

ELEANOR COHEN

Eleanor Cohen was elected to the Claremont CityCouncil in 1974 and served until 1984. She focusedher efforts largely on environmental issues and cre-ating cooperation in government. In a 1982COURIER interview, Ms. Cohen was quoted assaying, “Planning is not just buildings. Planning is

putting a community together in a way that is im- portant to you.”

As Claremont mayor, she devolved ties between thePomona Valley and San Gabriel Valley. She was thecouncil rep to the Southern California Association of Governments, and had a special interest in air quality.In 1970, Ms. Cohen served on the city’s environmen-tal task force, which addressed water and air qualityas well as what Ms. Cohen called “the freeway issue.”She was opposed to extending the Foothill freewaythrough Claremont due to air quality concerns.







CLAIREMCDONALDClaire McDonald was elected to the councilin 1970 and served until 1982.

JUDYCODYJudy Cody was elected to the Claremont City Council in 1994 and served until her resignation in 1996. Ms. Cody now lives in Missouri near family.




If you needed proof STEMsubjects are no longer dominated by men, look

no further than Harvey MuddCollege. The private liberal

arts school, known for itsfocus on mathematics, scienceand engineering, is helmed bya woman.

Marie Klawe, a mathematician andcomputer scientist who took the reinsof the Claremont college in 2006, aims“to enhance the diversity of scienceand engineering.” She’s getting there.

When she became president of Harvey Mudd, 32 percent of studentswere women. Now it’s 45 percent.

Her impact on one of the school’scentral disciplines may be even moresignificant. In the last decade, the

percentage of HMC’s computer

science majors who are female rosefrom 10 to 40 percent.The achievement landed Ms. Klawe

on Fortune magazine’s 2014 list of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders. It’s

pretty heady stuff, but don’t expecther to don a power suit anytime soon.Ms. Klawe, who has been known totool around campus on a skateboard,

is much more comfortable in a T-shirt.Her approachability goes beyond

appearance.Ms. Klawe, 64, has worked to make

Harvey Mudd’s recruiting materialmore female-friendly. She has

overseen a curriculum revision inwhich the college’s introductorycomputer science courses have becomemore creative, collaborative andaccessible.

She also sends first-year women tothe Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, an annual techconference offering an abundance of female role models.

When Ms. Clave, 64, was young, shehad no such encouragement.

Growing up in Toronto, Ontario, her tomboyish ways and love of mathmade her “an odd duck” among her

peers. “Everything I liked was things boys liked to do,” Ms. Klawe said.

That included math, which waslargely regarded as a male pursuit. Shewas the only girl taking trigonometrywhen she was in high school. She alsohappened to be at the top of her class.

After graduation, she receivedscholarships to study engineering and

HARVEY MUDD PRESIDENT/ next pageCOURIER photos/Steven Felschundneff

Harvey Mudd President Maria Klawe at the school's commencement 2015.

Aiming to diversify science and engineering




math at the University of Alberta. Sheremembers professors asking her whyshe was majoring in math. “There areno good woman mathematicians,”they’d say.

She was good, however, so much sothat she earned a PhD in math at the

University of Alberta in 1977.Beginning in 1980, Ms. Klawe spent

eight years working for IBM Research,during the infancy of the personalcomputer and of the video game.

She then began to break boundaries inacademia. Ms. Klawe became the firstfemale head of the computer sciencedepartment and the first woman dean of science at the University of BritishColumbia. She next began a tenure atPrinceton, where she was the firstfemale dean of engineering as well as a

professor of computer science.If her career demonstrates that

women can excel in STEM, her hobby proves left-brain and right-brain

thinking can comfortably co-exist.Ms. Klawe, has been painting and

drawing all her life. There is true skillin her renderings of scenic vistas,

people and animals, often vibratingwith color. “I’m self-taught—I wasn’ttrying to follow someone else’s style,”she said.

She completes as many as 40watercolor paintings a year. Theseinclude portraits of HMC facultymembers’ children. The professorsappreciate the thoughtful gesture onthe part of Ms. Klawe, who has twogrown children herself, a son who is 33and a 30-year-old daughter.

She has an ingenious way of

melding her artwork with her busyacademic schedule. She paints during

meetings, insisting it makes her a better listener.

HMC students are as well-roundedas she is, Ms. Klawe emphasized. Youcan see the variety of interests in thecollege’s machine shop, where studentscan be seen building scooters, electric

guitars, skateboards and drones.“Someone will come here who’s

really into music and philosophy aswell as physics,” she said.

Diverse as they are, students whocome to Harvey Mudd are universallyexcited to find themselves among peerswho love STEM subjects too. Theyoften experience an unaccustomedsense of belonging. “It’s like, I foundmy tribe,” Ms. Klawe said.

The tribal atmosphere can be seen inthe school’s unusual lack of academiccompetition. The work is so challengingthe college yields few 4.0s. Studentslook to master rigorous subject matter rather than nail high grades.

It’s a process aided by collaboration.The average HMC student isconstantly studying and collaboratingwith other students, and should theysee a peer struggling, they generallyreach out to help.

“What distinguishes our culture— beyond the obvious Claremontstereotype where people think of us asnerds or geeks—is that our studentshave a value system that says it’s everystudent’s responsibility to make sureevery other student succeeds,” Ms.Klawe said. “One dad called our students the geek marines, becausethey never leave a person behind.”

—Sarah [email protected]

HARVEY MUDD PRESIDENT/ from previous page




R enowned poet Louise Glück will read from her recent work on Monday, February 1 at 6:45

p.m. at Claremont McKenna College’sMarian Miner Cook Athenaeum.

Ms. Glück has released a dozen books of poetryas well as three collections of her work since her debut anthology, “Firstborn,” appeared in 1968.Her work is noted for its technical precision, sensi-tivity and insight into loneliness, family relation-ships, divorce and death. There is also humor, asevident in this wry line from the poem “Siren”: “I

became a criminal when I fell in love. Before that, Iwas a waitress.”

Among other honors, Ms. Glück was the recipi-ent of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry in 1985 and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetryin 1993.

“Glück has a gift for getting the reader to imaginewith her, drawing on the power of her audience to

be amazed,” observed Anna Wooten in the Ameri-can Poetry Review. Stephen Dobyns maintained in

The New York Times Book Review that “no Ameri-can poet writes better than Louise Glück, perhapsnone can lead us so deeply into our own nature.”

Ms. Glück’s Athenaeum appearance, co-spon-sored by CMC’s Gould Center for Humanistic Stud-ies, is free to the public. The Athenaeum is locatedat 385 E. 8th St. in Claremont. For information,visit cmc.edu/athenaeum.

Louise Glück to appear at Athenaeum

Photo courtesy of Gasper Tringale




The Claremont Chamber of Commerce will hostthe Women’s Leader-

ship Conference on Friday,March 4 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.at the DoubleTree by HiltonClaremont.

The day-long event will feature keynotespeaker Lori Giovannoni. Ms. Giovan-noni is an award-winning speaker, au-thor and businesswoman. Her clientsinclude small businesses, as well as For-tune 500 companies and departments

within federal, state and city govern-ments. Her contributions as a volunteer in her community have earned her manyawards, including the Athena Award. As

the dean of Executive Women Interna-tional’s Academy of Leadership, Ms.Giovannoni has designed and developedall the courses that comprise the Acad-emy of Leadership. To learn more, visitlorigiovannoni.com.

Motivational speaker, author andspeech coach Mimi Donaldson willalso speak at the conference. For morethan 20 years, Ms. Donaldson has cap-tivated audiences from the Fortune 100

to the just plain fortunate. She’s wonacclaim for her keynote speeches,workshops and in-house training pro-grams. She has shared the keynote plat-

form with Colin Powell, Katie Couricand Maya Angelou.

She holds a bachelor’s degree inspeech and dramatic arts from the Uni-versity of Iowa and a master’s degreein education from Columbia Univer-

sity. For 10 years, Ms. Donaldson was

COURIER file photo/Jenelle RenschKeynote speaker Lori Giovannoni discusses “Success Redefined” at last year’s Claremont Chamber Women’s Leadership Conferenceat the DoubleTree hotel.

Claremont Chamber to host annualWomen’s Leadership Conference

Jodi Walker

Mimi Donaldson

WOMEN’S LEADERSHIP/ next page




Nancy Pelosi, DemocraticLeader of the US House of Representatives for the 114th

Congress, will visit Scripps College onThursday, February 18 at 12:15 p.m.From 2007 to 2011, Ms. Pelosi served as Speaker of

the House, the first woman to do so in American his-tory. As the Democratic Leader, Ms. Pelosi is fightingfor bigger paychecks and better infrastructure for

America’s middle class families.In 2013, she was inducted into the National

Women’s Hall of Fame at a ceremony in Seneca Falls,the birthplace of the American women’s rights move-ment. For 28 years, Ms. Pelosi has represented SanFrancisco, California’s 12th District in Congress. Shehas led House Democrats for more than 12 years and previously served as House Democratic Whip.

For free-of-charge tickets, visit eventbrite.com andsearch “Nancy Pelosi.” The Scripps Performing ArtsCenter is located at 241 E. 10th St. in Claremont.

A conversation on women in politics with HouseDemocratic Leader Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Leader of the US House ofRepresentatives for the 114th Congress. Ms. Pelosi wil

speak at Scripps College on Thursday, February 18.

a human resources specialist with Walt Disney Com pany, Northrop Aircraft and Rockwell InternationalFor more information on Ms. Donaldson’s back-ground, visit mimidonaldson.com.

Jodi Walker, founder and chief creative catalyst forSuccess Alliances, is an award-winning speaker andconsultant, is known for her high-energy presenta-tions. Ms. Walker was once described by an LA Times

reporter as having “seemingly endless energy.” Herunique ability to help leaders and their teams find in-novative ways to move “beyond business as usual”has helped audiences worldwide.

Ms. Walker’s popularity and repeat business withher clients is attributed to her unique style and au-thenticity. She works with entrepreneurs, small busi-ness owners and Fortune 500 companies that wantto tap into their creative talents to take businesses tothe next level. She is the recipient of the CertifiedSpeaking Professional credential—fewer than 300women in the world have received this designationfrom the National Speakers Association and theGlobal Speakers Federation. For more informationvisit jodiwalker.com.

Cost for the event is $129, which includes a conti-nental breakfast and lunch. To register, visit clare-montchamber.org. To be a sponsor or an exhibitorcontact Marlene at (909) 624-1681 or by email [email protected].

WOMEN’S LEADERSHIP/ from previous page

COURIER file photo/Jenelle RenschModerator Lori Giovannoni leads former mayors of Clare-mont in a panel discussion about women in leadershiproles at last year’s Claremont Chamber Women’s Lead-ership Conference at the DoubleTree Hotel.





Documents

Courier Focus 2016