President’s Council of Cornell Women | Monthly eNews | Aug-Sept 2013
Dear fellow PCCW members,
Welcome back to those of you returning from vacation and happy fall to everyone! We hope you all
had a wonderful summer and are looking forward to a fall season filled with new energy, vitality and
a renewed sense of purpose. In this edition of our eNews, we share greetings from our new PCCW
Co-Chairs, Linda Gadsby and Jill Goldy, who along with new Vice Chair, Liz Everett, are poised to
increase engagement with and catalyze all of our PCCW members whether new or sustaining, near
or far, online or in person.
As a means to further inspire you, this eNews also feature three of our members who through their
service to others and commitment to excellence exemplify the PCCW woman and demonstrate the
value of finding one’s purpose in life. Finally, we look forward to seeing and connecting with you at
any of the events publicized at the end of this month’s eNews and encourage you to share your
great news with us.
Wishing you a bountiful fall season!
Fond regards,
Liz Ngonzi
Chair, PCCW Communications Committee
enn1@cornell.edu
Connect with us on
CHAIRS' CORNER
CALLS TO ACTION AND
COMMITTEE NEWS
Greetings from Linda and Jill. We’re off and
running as the Co-Chairs of PCCW for 20132015, and we’re very excited about what lies
ahead! We plan to communicate with you each
month in the PCCW eNews, so we hope you’ll
look for our message, and also check out all of
the other useful information in the eNews,
designed to keep you informed about what’s
happening with PCCW.
Calling all PCCW committee chairs! The “Calls
to Action” section of the monthly eNews is your
chance to ask the PCCW membership at large
for their help or simply get the word out about
your recent activities. Please submit your “call
to action” requests to Heidi Grenek at
Heidi.Grenek@xerox.com no later than the 3rd
Monday of each month for inclusion in that
month’s eNews.
In exciting news, we are pleased to announce
that Liz Everett will serve as Vice Chair of
PCCW during our term. Liz has been an active
PCCW member and most recently served as the
Chair of the Membership Committee. We are
delighted to have Liz on the PCCW leadership
team.
Annual Meeting Planning Committee
We are quickly moving forward to plan our 2014
PCCW Annual Meeting in Ithaca. Our working
theme is "Women Thought Leaders and
Thought Leaders About Women's Issues."
Thought Leaders are recognized experts in their
selected areas of specialization. This theme is
intentionally broad so that we can consider a
number of stimulating topics for our meeting.
Since our membership consists of a diverse,
Since our committee chairs and vice chairs
serve staggered two-year terms, we also have
some new committee leaders. A full list of our
fantastic 2013-2014 committee chairs and vice
chairs can be found on the PCCW website. Click
here to access the link. If you want to reach any
committee leader, their contact information can
be found on the membership list, which resides
on Google docs here.
In a further effort to keep you informed and up to
date on PCCW happenings- committee
conference calls, meeting dates, and regional
events, we are instituting a master calendar,
which you can access via the web. Look for the
link in next month’s newsletter. In the meantime,
please save the following important dates:

September 11, 2013, 1:00 p.m. EDT:
PCCW Orientation Webinar

September 19, 2013, 7:00 p.m. EDT:
PCCW Orientation Webinar

February 28-March 2, 2014:
PCCW Annual Meeting in Ithaca

September 12-13, 2014:
PCCW Annual Meeting in New York City
(see more below)
In response to many requests from you, we are
happy to tell you that we are re-instituting the
membership directory! Watch for information
requesting your bio and photo in the near future.
We need volunteers to make this happen. If you
are interested in working on the directory
project, please contact Tina Gourley at
tina.gourley@cornell.edu.
Thanks to your generosity, we have exceeded
our goal of raising $1M in our Leadership
Scholarship fund two years early!! Our special
thanks goes out to the Development Committee
and to all of the 401 members who have given
so generously to support scholarships for
women leaders on campus. And an extra shout
out goes to Patricia Carry Stewart, Liz Everett,
Gloria Lang, Victoria Medvec, Jane Brody and
Nancy Hall Arno for establishing named
scholarships for women students within our
Leadership Scholarship Fund.
We are very excited about leading PCCW into
our 25th Anniversary year and Cornell’s
Sesquicentennial. Below is a short summary of
our broad strategic vision for PCCW (not
dynamic group of women with contacts in a
variety of disciplines, we are reaching out to you
to suggest people who would be excellent
presenters
under
this
theme.
Please
send speaker suggestions for people that you
know personally (or have access to someone
who knows them) and would be willing to
contact on behalf of the PCCW Annual Meeting
Planning Committee. Suggestions can be sent
to Daphne Mobley.
Committee Sign-Ups
If you have not already signed up this summer
to participate in one or more PCCW
committees, please do so immediately. PCCW
circulated and now has recently re-circulated a
two-minute survey to help us update our
committee lists and make sure you are
receiving
communications
from
the
committee(s) you want to participate in. If you
haven’t yet responded, please take the two
minutes required to do so, even if you have
served on a particular committee in the past.
Unless you complete the survey, we can’t
guarantee you’ll be on any current committee
email list.
MEMBER NEWS
PCCW Member, Lynn Heymont, named
Senior Vice President at Participant Media
Lynn Heymont has been appointed Senior Vice
President, Human Resources for Participant
Media, it was announced by Participant CEO
Jim Berk. Heymont, who will report to Berk, will
be responsible for the direction and
administration of human resource strategy for
Participant Media, including the film group, its
digital division TakePart and its new TV
channel, Pivot, which launched August 1st.
Lynn is an experienced HR professional and
has held leadership positions in the
entertainment industry including at CBS, Sony
Pictures Entertainment, and most recently,
Deluxe Entertainment Services Group where
she was the Executive Vice President, Human
Resources – North America.
In
addition
to
her
professional
accomplishments, Lynn has had a long history
of public service, including serving on the Board
of Directors and as West Coast Vice Chair for
The Emma L. Bowen Foundation for Minority
Interests in Media, the President’s Council of
Cornell Women, and the Dean’s Advisory Board
necessarily in order of importance):

Broad Active Member Engagement: We
are seeking ways to help ensure that the
maximum possible number of PCCW
members are actively involved with
PCCW and Cornell. We’re going to do our
best to understand and address the
factors that drive engagement. In the
meantime, please be sure to join and
actively participate in at least one
committee, if you haven’t already. Newer
members should please note that the
committees are each described in our
Fact Sheet on the PCCW website. Please
also plan to participate in one of the two
Member Orientation webinars we are
offering on September 11 and September
19.

Strong
Sustaining
Member
Engagement: We will continue to
emphasize in everything we do how much
we value the participation of sustaining
members in all PCCW activities.

Enhanced Regional Focus: We believe
it’s important to PCCW’s success to keep
members engaged with one another in
your home regions and to make sure
sufficient attention is being paid to some
of the smaller regions. In addition, we
want to strengthen even further our ties in
the regions with other alumni groups
(e.g., MOSAIC and local Cornell Clubs),
and increase opportunities to network
with younger female alums, both for
mentoring purposes and as another way
of identifying potential candidates for
future membership. During our term, the
two of us will make as many personal
visits as we can with PCCW groups
around the country.

Engagement with the Medical School
and Cornell Tech: At President Skorton’s
request, we will begin holding annual
meetings in the Fall in NYC, in addition to
our Spring meetings in Ithaca. Our first
NYC meeting is slated for September 1213, 2014 (let us know if you are interested
in working on the planning committee).
These NYC meetings will be designed to
facilitate greater engagement with the
students, faculty, and administrators of
of UCLA Extension. In 2011 Lynn was elected
to Cornell’s University Council which partners
with the Board of Trustees on issues impacting
the university’s faculty, staff and student body.
Participant (participantmedia.com) is a global
entertainment company founded in 2004 by Jeff
Skoll to focus on feature film, television,
publishing and digital content that inspires
social change. Participant's more than 40 films
include GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK,
SYRIANA, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH,
FOOD, INC., WAITING FOR 'SUPERMAN’,
THE HELP, CONTAGION and LINCOLN.
Through its films, social action campaigns,
digital network TakePart.com and Pivot, its new
television network for Millennials, Participant
seeks to entertain, encourage and empower
every individual to take action.
PCCW Member, Anne Hoskins, Esq.
appointed as Commissioner on Maryland’s
Public Service Commission
On August 15, Maryland’s Gov. Martin O’Malley
appointed Anne Hoskins as Commissioner on
the Public Service Commission. The mission of
the Maryland Public Service Commission is to
ensure safe, reliable, and economic public utility
and transportation service to the citizens of
Maryland.
"I am pleased that Anne has agreed to serve
the people of Maryland during this critical time,"
said Governor O'Malley. "As an expert in clean
energy and climate change, Anne understands
the importance of ensuring a resilient electric
grid for all Marylanders in the face of
increasingly severe weather. I am confident she
will help push the state forward on its ambitious
goals while protecting the interests of
hardworking Maryland families."
Ms. Hoskins has served as Senior Vice
President of Public Affairs and Sustainability for
the Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG) in
Newark, New Jersey for over six years. In this
capacity, she developed and led federal and
state government affairs advocacy and policy
initiatives and advocated for climate and energy
legislation and EPA regulations to reduce
pollution impacts from power production. She
also served as a Visiting Research Scholar at
the Andlinger Center on Energy and the
Environment at Princeton University where she
conducted energy policy research on renewable
energy development and regulation, lectured on
the Weill Cornell Medical College
(WCMC) and Cornell Tech; the format will
be different from that of the Ithaca
meetings. We will continue to meet with
our WCMC and Cornell Tech colleagues
and further expand our relationship with
them.



Accessible
Communications
with
Great Content: We will continue to
emphasize the importance of making
PCCW communications easily accessible
to all our members by using overlapping
delivery vehicles (e.g., email, social
media, etc.) that reach the widest
possible range of members.
Support
of
University
Diversity
Initiatives: PCCW will continue to
support the university’s diversity initiatives
in their broadest sense, while maintaining
our focus on gender equity issues. We
will also continue our practice of having
PCCW members consult to university
staff, when requested.
Maximize
Effectiveness
of
Development
Activities:
We
will
continue to strive for a goal of 100%
member giving participation to PCCW
initiatives and/or to Cornell generally, in
any amount comfortable for each
member. We are working closely with
university staff to explore the most
effective ways to pursue development
going forward in light of Cornell’s priorities
and the current economic environment.
We are so proud to be associated with PCCW
and will do our absolute best to represent you
well. Help us by being an active participant and
communicating your great ideas to your
committee leaders, to Liz Everett and/or to us.
Finally, enjoy the last of summer!!
Best,
Linda and Jill
P.S. Who are your leaders? Learn more about
Jill, Linda, and Liz.
clean energy and carbon policy issues and
advised students, and convened a policy
roundtable on the valuation of distributed
energy.
Anne received a B.S. degree in Applied
Economics at Cornell University , an M.P.A.
degree at Princeton University and a law
degree at Harvard Law School.
PCCW member Debra Wein appointed to the
Wellness Programming Committee of the
New England Employee Benefits Council
PCCW member (and PCCW newsletter coeditor), Debra Wein was appointed to the
Wellness Programming Committee of the New
England Employee Benefits Council and was
asked to moderate the organization's June 20th
conference entitled "Corporate Wellness:
Measuring Success."
As many of you know, Debra is the President
and Founder of Wellness Workdays, an award
winning company dedicated to creating
strategic work site wellness programs.
Please see the Wellness Workdays website for
more details (and be sure to sign up for the
newsletters, especially if you like to have
healthy recipes for tasty new dishes show up in
your in-box!). To sign up, check out
www.wellnessworkdays.com!
EVENTS CALENDAR
As mentioned in Linda and Jill’s letter, PCCW
will soon have a master calendar of all of our
upcoming meetings and events. Until then,
please save the following dates:

September 11, 2013, 1:00 p.m. EDT:
PCCW Orientation Webinar

September 19, 2013, 7:00 p.m. EDT:
PCCW Orientation Webinar

February 28-March 2, 2014:
PCCW Annual Meeting in Ithaca
Theme: "Women Thought Leaders and
Thought Leaders about Women's
Issues"
Confirmed speakers:
o
o
o
PCCW Alumnae Engagement Reception
June 13, 2013
at the NYC home of member Marlene Krauss '65

Nita Farahany, Professor of Law
and Research Professor of
Genome Sciences and Policy,
Duke University will address
various bioethics issues
Sandra Fluke, attorney and
women’s rights advocate
Jeanine Prime, Vice President for
Research at Catalyst, a well-known
organization which advocates for
women’s issues in business
September 12-13, 2014:
PCCW’s Inaugural Annual Meeting in
New York City
ARE YOU "LINKED IN" TO PCCW?
Link: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=4403189&trk=myg_ugrp_ovr
Like our Facebook group, The President's Council of Cornell Women (PCCW) Linked In group was
developed to help create a virtual community experience for our geographically dispersed members
who all have busy schedules and are therefore limited in the amount of in-person interaction they
are able to have with each other. On Linked In, you’ll find lots of current information
about PCCW activities, great things our members are accomplishing, and useful resources to help
keep you engaged with the organization and each other.
How to join:
To join the group, sign into your Linked In account, then copy the following link into your browser,
and send a request to join: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=4403189&trk=myg_ugrp_ovr
Once your request is made, one of the group's administrators, Tara Murphy or Liz Ngonzi will
accept your request and you can begin to enjoy the photos and links we've already added, as well
as add your own PCCW-related information.
Guidelines:
We ask that you help the group activity focus on the PCCW mission: Please refrain from using
this Linked In group as a solicitation vehicle for your respective businesses/projects, unless you
obtain permission from the PCCW Co-Chairs or Vice Chair. Additionally, the private Linked In group
is only for the use of PCCW members, therefore, we ask that you do not share it with any people
outside of the PCCW membership.
President's Council of Cornell Women
Office of Volunteer Programs
Alumni Affairs and Development
pccw@cornell.edu
alumni.cornell.edu/pccw/