Former Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder is the second speaker in the 1999-2000 Van Evera Distinguished Lecture Series. She will be on campus on Wednesday, November 3 to present a public address titled Twenty-Five Years of Housework and the House is Still a Mess at 8 p.m. in Fisher Hall 135. In addition to the question and answer session following the evening lecture there will also be an opportunity for an informal discussion with Schroeder at Tech Tea Time at 4 p.m. on November 3 in the Memorial Union Alumni Lounge. Both events are free and open to the public.
Patricia Scott Schroeder, who earned a law degree from Harvard, was first elected to Congress in 1972 on an anti-Vietnam platform. The longest serving woman in the U.S. House of Representatives, she served the first congressional district of Colorado and was reelected eleven times. A young mother with a two-year-old and a six-year-old, she was totally unprepared to win in '72. "It made no sense," she says. When asked why she resigned twenty-five years later, she responds ". . . one of the things I sensed about Congress is that it's easy to stay too long. I always wanted to go out at the top and not have to have somebody tap me on the shoulder and say, 'Um, there's something we need to talk about.'"
Close to the top of her list of achievements Schroeder places having gotten through her career "with my marriage intact, my kids fine, not being indicted, and not being in any major scandals." However, she is most proud of the numerous bills she managed to get passed into law about issues for which there was no big lobbying or power group, including authorship of a number of bills protecting and upholding the rights of children and families-the Violence Against Women Act, the Child Support Responsibility Act, and the National Child Protection Act.
A true political maverick, former Congresswoman Schroeder has been an outspoken independent voice within the Democratic Party. She's been a leader on foreign and military policy, arms control and disarmament, woman's economic equality and health, educational opportunity, constitutional rights, and policies that affect children, women and families. Commentators have applauded her straight-shooting comments and consistent commitment to her beliefs.
The 1994 American Advancement of Politics noted that then-congresswoman Schroeder ". . . sees herself less as a liberal than as part of the vibrant Old West history of skepticism about tradition and authority figures; in Washington, however, and around the country where she has become one of the best-known House members, she is a symbol of feminism and liberalism-a kind of authority figure herself."
The Congresswoman retired from her post in January 1997, and, following a semester of teaching at Princeton University, began a new job as president and chief executive of the Association of American Publishers, the trade group for the publishing industry.
The Van Evera Distinguished Lecture series is made possible by a gift from the Van Evera family to the Michigan Tech Fund. The series is coordinated by the University Cultural Enrichment Department. For more information call 487-2844.
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10/25/99-MTN174