Maine Woman to Lead Women’s Campaign School at Yale

New Haven, Conn. — The Women’s Campaign School (WCS) at Yale University, a non-profit, non-partisan political leadership training program expressly for women, announces the election of Maine resident and WCS board member Martha Sterling-Golden as president of the School.

WCS is a summer program hosted at Yale by Yale Law School.

“This board represents decades of successful political and non-profit management experience, and it is a profound honor to be entrusted with their good faith,” Sterling-Golden commented.

“The challenge of leadership is finding a respectable and ethical way to move your agenda while preserving professional comity,” said Sterling-Golden, who is a 1995 alumna. “Unfortunately, in real life not everyone on your committee will be a member of your party or agree with you on the issue; you have to bring competing ideas together.”

“We bring women to New Haven from different national, cultural and political backgrounds to learn to work together. . . leaving aside our personal political conflicts,” she added.

Sterling-Golden is a former elected representative to the Maine Democratic State Committee, and she serves on the advisory board of the Maine chapter of the national Democratic women’s training program Emerge America. She has a background in political campaign work in addition to decades of political activism. Sterling-Golden is a former member of the board of the Maine Women’s Lobby and was appointed to the state Human Resources Development and Jobs councils.

Currently, Sterling-Golden is major gifts manager for Maine Coast Heritage Trust, the state’s largest non-profit conservation organization, which has just completed a successful $100,000,000 capital campaign.

The School also elected the following new officers and board members:

Deb Sofield, an international public speaking consultant and businesswoman, was elected first vice-president. Sofield is a Greenville, South Carolina, City Council member and travels abroad for the American Council of Young Political Leaders, a bipartisan, non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C.

Patricia Russo, former chair of the Connecticut Permanent Commission on the Status of Women, is second vice-president. She is currently vice-president of the Foundation for Connecticut Women and is a member of the Council of Women’s Health Research at Yale, and former board member of the National Association of Commissions for Women.

Arlene Violet of Rhode Island is the new board secretary. A popular public affairs radio host, columnist and practicing attorney, Violet was the first woman to be elected a state attorney general in the United States.

Laurel J. Anderson, project manager for United Way of Connecticut and chair of the Connecticut chapter of the American Association of University Women State Legal Advocacy Fund, was re-elected to a second term as treasurer of the board.

New board members include editorial columnist Samar Rashdan al-Roomi, Kuwait University, founder of the Society for Study and Training in Leadership Development in Kuwait; Angela Faulkner of the marketing and political consulting firm Faulkner Strategies; Pamela Stark, director of development at the Child Guidance Center of Mid-Fairfield County, Connecticut, and formerly of the Volunteer Consulting Group in Manhattan; and Shawnta Walcott, formerly with Zogby International, now president of Ariel & Ethan, LLC — a non-partisan independent polling firm based in Bethesda, Maryland—and a partner and consultant with the Democracy Group, LLC. These members join Mary Ann O’Connor of Connecticut and Lauren K. Day of New Jersey, who are past co-presidents of WCS; political consultant Nancy Bocskor, Virginia; U. S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona; Tanya Meck, founder of MB Associates, a political and non-profit consulting group; Beth Bird Pocker, Esq., New York; and Kate Stith, Connecticut.

Founded in 1993 by Yale Associate Fellow Andree Brooks, an author and journalist, WCS is one of a handful of non-partisan, non-issues-based training programs in the country. It is a 60-hour immersion program covering every facet of campaign training and political leadership preparation. The faculty is comprised of the nation’s top political talent from a broad political spectrum, providing the best quality of training and real-world leadership experience.

The 2006 summer session brought women to WCS from 16 states, from Maine to Hawaii, and from nine countries. The School’s primary program is the five-day annual summer session which is hosted at Yale Law School each July. For more information: http://www.wcsyale.org.