"Critical Thinking." That's how women at NIH change America,
according to organizers of the 2005 Women's History Month celebration,
who adapted the occasion's national theme — "Women Change
America" — for the NIH audience.
Leading off the celebration, sponsored by NIH's Office of Equal
Opportunity and Diversity Management on Mar. 9, Ann Timmons, a
communication artist, performed the one-woman play, Off
the Wall: The Life and Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Author in 1892
of The Yellow Wallpaper, a semi-autobiographical account of a woman's
struggle with depression, Gilman was a pundit and lecturer on equal
rights for women. In 1898, she published the book Women
and Economics,
which was critically acclaimed and subsequently translated into
seven languages.
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| Ann Timmons, a communication artist, performed a one-woman play about equal
rights pioneer Charlotte Perkins Gilman. |
Following the performance, Timmons took questions from the audience
about parallels between the skills Gilman used to promote change
in her society and the skills employed by women at NIH who are
involved in the scientific community. The audience was invited
to take part in a critical thinking workshop after the program.
A mentoring seminar concluded the month's celebration. Held in
the Stone House, the seminar recognized four outstanding NIH women
as "great mentors and champions of the Federal Women's Program." The
honorees were Joan Brogan, OEODM deputy director; Dr. Vivian Pinn,
NIH associate director for research on women's health; Dr. Ruth
Kirschstein, senior advisor to the NIH director; and Dr. Joan Schwartz,
assistant director of the NIH Office of Intramural Research.
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| Glenda Keen, Federal Women’s Program assistant, greets Justin Hayes, a representative
of Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski, who sent remarks for the occasion. |
Cheryl Kelley of FDA offers the keynote address. |
Cheryl Kelley, special emphasis program manager at the Food and
Drug Administration, gave the keynote address.
The primary goal of the Federal Women's Program, and other special
emphasis efforts at NIH, is to identify and eliminate barriers
to a model equal employment opportunity program at NIH, at the
department and throughout the nation's workforce, according to
Rose Pruitt, NIH Federal Women's Program manager, OEODM. Career
development at various levels, and a quarterly review of recruitment,
hiring and promotion of women are merely two objectives NIH has
identified to accomplish its goal.
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| NIH deputy director Dr. Raynard Kington congratulates “great
mentors” (from l) Dr. Vivian Pinn, Dr. Ruth Kirschstein, Joan Brogan and Dr. Joan
Schwartz. |
"With women accounting for more than 50 percent of the U.S. workforce,
women are America," Pruitt said. 
