The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University has named Karen M. Kedrowski as director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics. She will begin her new job on January 1.
Carrie Chapman Catt (1859-1947) was a graduate of what is now Iowa State University and was a leader of the women’s suffrage movement. The Catt Center was established by the Iowa Board of Regents in 1992 and is the nation’s second oldest university-based center for women and politics. The center houses a one-of-its-kind online Archive of Women’s Political Communication, hosts the national Ready to Run bipartisan campaign training workshop in Iowa, tracks the representation of women on city and county boards and commissions through its Gender Balance Project and the Women in Iowa Politics Database, among other initiatives.
Dr. Kedrowski is a professor of political science at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina. She is also the director of the Center for Civic Learning and co-director of the John C. West Forum on Politics and Policy at the university. Earlier, she served as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the university.
Professor Kedrowski is the author of Media Entrepreneurs and the Media Enterprise in the U.S. Congress (Hampton Press, 1996). She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota where she majored in political science, French and history. Dr. Kedrowski earned her master’s degree and Ph.D. in political science at the University of Oklahoma.