Feminist Leadership Fellows

• Self employed vocal coach - full time since 2005, part time since 1998
• Calliope Women's Chorus - Artistic and Executive Director
• Lake Harriet Spiritual Community - Ministerial Guide

• MHTA (Minnesota High Tech Association)
• Minneapolis Public Schools

• Chimacum High School, Chimacum, WA
• Olympic Community College, Bremerton, WA
• Others, including Coe College in Cedar Rapids and Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA

• Making my living doing what I love - music!
• Successful first year of rebuilding of Calliope - grown from 11 active members to over 30
• State Fair "Classrooms of the Future" exhibit
• After-school Music Program for small public school

• College of St. Catherine
• B. Dalton Booksellers
• Amfac Hotel

• Glencoe High School, Glencoe, MN
• University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, BS in Business
• Administration College of St. Catherine, St. Paul, MA in Organizational Leadership

• Creation and implementation of a leadership development program for emerging women leaders
• Creation and implementation a Summer study abroad short-term model that allowed working women and weekend college students to participate.
• Increasing the number of women of color leadership development programs at St. Catherine

• Border Collies
• Biking
• Reading good stories (fiction and non-fiction)
• Creating opportunities to help women help themselves succeed
• Creating something out of nothing ... coming up with an idea and making it happen

Back in my country, Uruguay, I worked many years with an electric company, first as an administrative assistant, then as an attorney, and finally as the director of the legal department, position I held up to my resignation in 2001, to come here to join my family. Also, while working with the electric company, I practiced law as a solo practitioner attorney in the fields of labor and family law.

I finished my doctorate in Law and Social Sciences (6-year degree) in Uruguay in 1977. When I came here, almost 7 years ago, I contemplated the idea of dedicating myself to study Latin American literature. I always enjoyed reading literature and I thought may be I was ready to forget the fight and dedicate myself to something like that. I actually started a master degree at the U. of M. at the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and I took 3 courses that I enjoyed greatly. But six month on that path, I received an offer to join BWLAP, and at that moment it was clear I was still more interested in dealing with reality than with literature, so I left the program and started my work here.

I feel it was a great achievement for me to be nominated to supervise more than twenty attorneys at the law department of the company I worked with in Uruguay. To get the nomination I needed to go through a very strict selection. I remember that in the process many people approached me and told me they had not doubts I was the person for the position, but they were unsure I would be selected....because I was a woman.... I also feel proud of a particular labor case where I represented 33 women who were fired from their jobs. The industry was closing its doors, not paying for the legal compensations. I found out a company's asset that at the moment wasn't yet took in guarantee for other creditors and I seized it in a preemptive motion. But to get my clients to receive their pays I needed to filed the claim at the Labor Court and go through the whole process with, of course, the opposition of the company. I won and my clients were paid in full, but it was not easy. It was a great experience for me for not only did I need to deal with the counterpart, but also with the doubts and anxiety of my 33 clients, who, for the most part, needed the money for yesterday. The third accomplishment I feel proud of, is being able to change language, culture, communication styles, friends, everything, at this point in my life and be able to work in what I like the most, defending basic human rights.

As I said before, my passion is to defend those who are the most vulnerable: because they are women, because they are poor, because they are discriminated. I am working now in the domestic violence field and I see every day how this tragic happens against the most vulnerable individuals. And of course, being an immigrant myself, I get a kick out of defending immigrant battered women. This has been mainly my field within domestic violence as a whole. I got the Board of Immigration Appeals certification to represent immigrants victims of crimes of violence at the US Citizenship and Immigration Services and I am proud of being able to do my work with immigrant women from all over the world.

• Northwest Bank for Rural Community Insurance Services as a Crop Insurance Underwriter
• Team Health Care as Manager
• Aspen Medical Group as Project Manager and Supervisor for the billing and insurance follow up group
• Silver Lake Clinic as Manager

• Crookston HS, Crookston, MN
• Palmer HS, Palmer AK.
• University of Minnesota, Crookston

• Creator of program to determine sugar content of sugar beets.
• Creator of Physician Education Program
• Implementation of new non-profit reproductive clinic

• My Husband, Children and Grandchildren
• Reading
• Arts
• Sewing
• Cooking
• Gardening
• Snowmobiling
• Women's Rights

• Project Manager Bright Bird: The Art of Corita Kent
• Scandinavian Hjemkomst Festival
• Fargo-Moorhead Civic Opera Company

• Anoka Senior High School
• Concordia College, Moorhead
• Minnesota State University Moorhead
• North Dakota State University Fargo

• Starting community-led youth and women's programs
• Introducing Aztec/Mexica teachers to the community
• Creating a workplace where any life situation or ability is accommodated

• Fairness
• Art and Justice
• Mentoring people to find their own passion

I have never worked for a non-profit (and still don't - I am president of a local chapter of an international volunteer organization currently). I have also served as President of a local chapter of Sigma Delta Epsilon/Graduate Women in Science, a national networking and support organization for women scientists. My entire professional career has been in academic institutions with academic appointments.

• Grant Park High School, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
• Queen's University (BSc, MSc, and PhD), Kingston, Ontario, Canada

• My PhD research and thesis
• My post-doctoral research and its publication in "Science"
• Obtaining my first independent NIH grant

• Making this world a humane place, where ever I can, including within my own sphere of friends and colleagues/coworkers, and as large as worldwide
• Teaching
• Being with, learning from, supporting, and networking with women

• St. Olaf College
• NASW-MN
• Gamble-Skogmo Chair in Child Welfare & Youth Policy/Destination 2010
• All Our Kids, Inc.
• The Mentoring Partnership of Minnesota

• Apple Valley High School, Apple Valley, MN
• University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE (undergrad)
• University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN (graduate school)

• Starting Grasstops, Inc.
• Seeing Grasstops meet its mission via client work
• Running for the State Senate in SD 25

• My family
• Grasstops- increasing access to decision making tables
• People

• Woodbury Health Care Center (current: Therapeutic Recreation Coordinator, Dementia Unit)
• My Sister (current: Personal Care Attendant & Respite Care for my Autistic nephew)
• Minnesota Women's Consortium (Chair of the Board of Directors, volunteer)
• School District 833 (paraprofessional with special needs students)
• Human Services & Human Rights Commission (vice chair, volunteer)

• Washburn HS '85, Mpls.
• The College of St. Catherine's '92, Mpls. campus

• Teaching my nephew how to speak and use sign language.
• Opening my own lawsuit to sue my ex's former employer for failing to withhold child support payments.
• Being involved in changing child support laws.

• Sunrises
• Sunsets
• Camping
• Standing up for what I believe in and helping others do the same.

• Minnesota State Senate
• Third Sector New England
• Zero to Eight Coalition
• Superior Group Consulting
• Girls International Forum

• Duluth Cathedral High School, Duluth, Minnesota
• College of St. Benedict, St. Joseph, Minnesota
• Harvard University Kennedy School of Government, Cambridge, Massachusetts

• Founding Girls International Forum; bringing a delegation of girls to China to participate in the Fourth World Conference on Women, and, 10 years later, hosting the first international girls' summit.
• Serving as a legislative advocate and staff person, focusing on rural health, economic development and natural resources, and treaty rights.
• Co-authoring and editing the Executive Director's Guide.

• Movies
• Rowing
• Baking
• Politics
• Social justice

I've been self-employed most of my adult life; Clients include human service non-profits, health providers, K-12 schools, higher education institutions, corporations and government agencies.

• Langdon High School, Langdon, North Dakota
• Bemidji State University, Bemidji, Minnesota
• Cincinnati University, Cincinnati, Ohio

• Laura Jeffrey Academy
• Starting and maintaining a consulting business
• Policy board governance for charter schools

• Equity for girls and women
• Play, good food, beaches, travel
• Gardening
• Work places that support people in making their best contributions
• Strategic and systemic thinking by individuals

• Wisconsin Community Action Agency (Director of a 10 County Program for youth in poverty)
• Minnetonka Public Schools (Director of Volunteer Programs (I've been at Perspectives for 26 years.)

• North Farmington High School - Farmington Hill, Michigan
• University of Wisconsin - Marinette, Wisconsin

• The founder of our Supportive Housing Program
• Securing our first HUD grant 18 years ago to purchased, renovate and launch the programming for Perspectives' Supportive Housing.
• Graduating over 1,300 women over the last 18 years
• The development of our Kids Connection Program - 12 month out of school programming for at risk and special needs children.
• Winning the Ann Bancroft Award for the Agency.

• Family (husband and grandchildren)
• Raising Money
• Developing Programs
• Travel
• Reading
• Decorating

• Community Involvement Programs (CIP)
• Metro State
• South Metro Human Services / ReEntry House
• Oasis Program

• St. Mary's University of Minnesota for graduate degree in Health and Human Services Administration
• University of MN; Twin Cities - BA in English Literature
• Brookfield Central H.S.; Brookfield, WI

• Becoming an Executive Director at Wayside House
• My work at CIP; starting new programs, balancing budget, raising profile of CIP with marketing/networking & getting voted Leader award by peers at CIP
• Being elected to USPRA (United States Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association) national board by membership

• Social & Economic justice/ feminism
• Family - Both immediate and extended - Tony, partner and our kids- Cedar, 9 and Zelia, 7

• Minnesota Coalition for Battered Women
• Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault
• Perseverance Theatre
• Naa Kahidi Theatre

• Juneau Douglas High School
• Chemawa High School, Salem Oregon
• College of St. Catherine

• Domestic assault strangulation felony
• $2 million transitional housing for battered women
• Tribal order for protection bill

• Storytelling
• Being a mother to a 16 year old daughter Shiana
• Family

• AmeriCorps
• Big Brothers Big Sisters
• Willamette Bridge Programs
• Freeport West

• Batavia High School, Batavia Illinois
• Truman State University, Kirksville, MO, UMN
• School of Social Work and HHH

• Wilderness groups with teen moms in Oregon
• Convincing the MN State Legislature to
• Provide appropriations for the MN Runaway and Homeless Youth Act
• Getting my current job

• Women and electoral politics
• Women policy issues
• Yoga
• Outdoors

• MN Coalition for Battered Women
• District Memorial Family TX Program
• Women's Crisis Center

• Sisseton, SD HS
• St Olaf College, Northfield
• U of MN, Mpls
• Moorhead State U

• First Woman Bush Leadership Fellow
• Founded first family treatment program in a CD Center in the US
• Founding mother of MN Network on Abuse in Later Life

• Advocating for old women victims of domestic and sexual abuse
• Sharing my views with younger and young women!

• Geriatric Healthcare Consultants
• Ekker Vac & Sew
• University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
• University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
• Winona State University
• University of Nebraska Medical Center
• Many others in my previous life (before grad school)

• Saddleback High School, Santa Ana, CA
• Cypress College, Cypress, CA
• University of Nebraska at Omaha (B.S. & M.S.), Omaha, NE
• University of Georgia (Ed.D.), Athens, GA

• I completed my doctoral dissertation in one semester while teaching full time (4 classes) and single-parenting a teenager.
• Successful collaboration of Schole journal article: Social Responsibility Revisited: Critical thinking and empathy as necessary components of social change
• Associate Co-Editor of Practice Perspectives section of the Therapeutic Recreation Journal

• Senior and Executive Producer of Arts and Culture at TPT
• Producer/Director/Writer- BW Productions (clients include Target, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Blue-60 pictures)

• Dickinson High School in Dickinson Texas
• BA from Austin College in Sherman, Texas
• MFA from University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, MN

• TVbyGIRLS
• Paying my bills by working in my field (arts)
• Minneapolis Institute of Arts audio tours
• The documentaries I have made

• Learning new things
• Gardening
• My dog
• Making films and teaching girls and how we can make things work better in the world