WREI FELLOWS TAKE THEIR PLACE ON CAPITOL HILL

The 2004 WREI Fellows have accepted House and Senate placements and are already immersed in legislative work. Their Congressional assignments and legislative duties are listed below. If you’d like to put faces with the names, we invite you to meet the Fellows online at ww.wrei.org/fellowships/fellowarchive.htm.

VICTORIA BRESCOLL is working in the office of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton
(D-NY), where she covers a variety of issues related to women and families.
During her first week on the job, Tori helped write a speech and press release on Senator Clinton’s Kinship Caregiver Support Act. Right now,she’s working on an amendment to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act reauthorization.

CHRISTIANNE CORBETT has joined the staff of Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY),
covering a wide range of women’s issues, including women in the military and
women’s health. One of Christi’s current projects is drafting a bill to require insurance companies to cover bone density screenings for individuals at risk for osteoporosis.

ANN GAVAGHAN is the health and social policy fellow in the office of Senator
Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), which means she is handling Temporary Assistance
for Needy Families (TANF), access to and quality of health care, and menu
labeling. This portfolio has led Ann to focus on the budget process, so she is also helping track amendments during the Senate's annual consideration of the budget resolution.

POLINA MAKIEVSKY covers a broad range of health care issues for Rep. Jan
Schakowsky (D-IL). Among her assignments: helping draft legislation that seeks to improve the quality of patient care by establishing minimum nurse-to-patient staffing ratios in hospitals; investigating hospital billing and collection practices with uninsured patients; and examining federal fire safety regulations in nursing homes. Polina also prepared questions for HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson when he came before the House Energy and Commerce Committee to testify on the Administration's FY 2005 health care priorities.

ERICA SWANSON works on education, child care, and welfare issues in the
office of Senator Jack Reed (D-RI). At the moment, she is shepherding Senator Reed’s “Preparing, Recruiting, and Retaining Education Professionals Act,” part of the Higher Education Act reauthorization bill. This legislation targets teachers, early childhood education providers, principals, and teacher preparation program faculty to provide ongoing opportunities for educator training and retraining.
Erica defines “shepherding” as re-drafting the bill, writing summaries and
background pieces, soliciting letters of support and co-sponsors, and helping with the Senator’s floor statement on the bill.

REENA SHAH is the foreign affairs fellow in the office of Senator Barbara
Mikulski (D-MD) and is focusing on international women's rights: Iraqi and Afghani women's issues, CEDAW, HIV/AIDS, and World Food Aid. Reena has organized two Senate briefings to highlight the struggles of Iraqi women to ensure their legal standing in the new constitution and interim government.

JOCELYN J. YEE has been assigned budget and economic policy issues—
specifically the President’s budget and domestic and international taxes, banking, labor, and pension reform—in the office of Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). For the past month, she has provided the Senator with time-sensitive data and analysis of the FY 2005 budget resolution, tracking reconciliation and pay-as-you-go language. She also wrote a floor statement for the Senator on the growing national debt. Jocelyn will focus next on the outsourcing of white and blue collar jobs.

NEWS FROM FORMER WREI FELLOWS

Evelyn Yee, Class of 1997-98
On December 18, 2003, Evelyn married Nimesh Patel at the Oberoi Rajvilas Hotel in Jaipur, India, in a traditional Indian wedding followed by a Chinese tea ceremony. As in the days of the maharajas, Nimesh rode to the temple on an ornately-decorated elephant named Bobo. (Incidentally, Bobo was President Bill Clinton's mount for a safari during a state visit to India.) The bride arrived in a flower-draped, horse-drawn carriage.

The wedding was preceded by a journey to the Taj Mahal, to Nimesh's familial
village, and to Delhi, and was followed by a honeymoon in Bali. WREI was well represented at the celebration: Lisa Maatz, another member of the class of 1997-98, joined the bride and groom on the first part of the trip and was a member of the wedding party.

The bride and groom met in Washington at a charity benefit raising awareness
of domestic violence. One of their first dates was at the 1998 WREI Gala. Evelyn confides that she knew Nimesh was “the one” because of his understanding of and commitment to women's issues.

Nimesh is an attorney in the Corporate Diversity Counseling Group in the Washington, DC office of Holland & Knight. As a WREI Fellow, Evelyn worked for Senator Edward M. Kennedy on health care issues. She is currently completing her MBA at The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

CAPTAIN LORY MANNING DEMONSTRATES GOOD JUDGEMENT

WREI's Lory Manning recently served as a national judge for two prestigious awards. First, she helped choose the finalists for the VFW’s “Voice of Democracy” contest, which has been awarding college scholarships to high school students since 1946. She then journeyed to New York to serve on Good Housekeeping magazine’s selection committee for its annual award recognizing women who have made a difference in federal, state, and local governments. Among Lory’s fellow judges were former Vermont governor Madeline Kuhn and former Congresswoman Patricia Saiki. The winners of the award will be announced later this spring in Good Housekeeping.

AAUW CALL FOR PROPOSALS

From November 12-14, the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation will hold its third biennial international symposium, “International Perspectives: Women Leading Change in Public Health and Technology.” AAUW is calling for proposals that describe the best practices elaborating how women are creating positive change with regard to implementing the use of technology and addressing the challenges that the use of technology presents to rural women in developing countries.

For more information, visit AAUW’s International Symposium informational
page at http://www.aauw.org/ef/symposium.cfm or contact Takara Swoopes by
e-mail at swoopest@aauw.org.