One week from today, Cornelia Schneider (F '06), will be the first individual presented with the Fletcher Women's Leadership Award (FWLA), established this year by the Fletcher Board of Advisors. The award was created to honor female Fletcher graduates who are making significant impacts in both the private and public sectors.
According to Betsy Powell (F '62), member of the Fletcher Board of Advisors and chair of the FWLA committee, the criteria to be considered for the FWLA are simple.
You could be in economics, banking, business, environmental [areas], NGOs, peace keeping - it was wide open," Powell said. "You didn't have to be married or with children, or without. [There were] no other requirements except [being] an outstanding individual who was a star in the international field."
Powell pointed out that this award is unique in that it takes into account the level of accomplishment of the nominees.
"This is the first women's award focused on women [who are] mid-career," she said. "We felt very strongly that we didn't want to give it to someone who had already risen to the top."
The creation of the award, in fact, was a direct product of conversations about how to increase the prevalence of women's leadership at Fletcher, according to Powell.
"The Fletcher students are roughly 55 percent female, and it [has] been that way ... for about the past 19 years or so," Powell said. "Women, [however], have not risen to the same height as the men [in the workforce]."
At a spring board meeting in 2011, Powell and other board members started questioning why the number of female students at Fletcher was not directly proportional to the percentage of women who hold prestigious positions at the school. Powell cited the fact that Maria Gordon was the only female vice chair on the Fletcher Board of Advisors.
"We're not getting tenured women, [for example]," Powell said. "We followed this up in the fall into 2012. We got a task force of women who were willing to work with us."
According to Powell, Fletcher created a program called the Initiative for Women's International Leadership (IWIL) in order increase the presence of women in leadership positions. Once established, the IWIL's first action was to create FWLA.
Powell underscored that the FWLA, however, is not intended to benefit only women. The board heavily considered how the award may influence male leaders at Fletcher.
"The men at Fletcher who will be managing this kind of [leading] woman can learn from whatever we learn," she said. "It was not an exclusive woman's deal. It was to strengthen men and women in the international field in managing people."
The Board of Advisors received 47 strong nominations for the award from the Fletcher community, according to Powell.
"We came to a decision the morning of [Fletcher's] 80th Anniversary Gala in Washington, D.C., and it was unanimous," Powell said.
Schneider will be flying to the United States for the award ceremony from the Democratic Republic of the Congo , where she currently works with the United Nations Development Programme's Access to Justice Project, focusing on improving the accountability of the DRC's justice system.
"I'm in Goma, which is the Eastern part of the DRC," Schneider said. "We try to make access to justice easier for affected persons, in particular for victims of sexual violence and victims of violent crimes."
She explained that there are four main aspects to her work: first, making people aware of their rights
