With USU Extension leadership professor and founding director of the Utah Women and Leadership Project, Dr. Susan Madsen.
The UWLP is an organization designed to support and strengthen women in leadership in Utah through research, access to resources, and trainings and events focused on their success.
Madsen, who has a doctorate in work, community, and family education, is here to tell us more about UWLP, some of her recent work with them, and her hopes for the future of the program.
Wynter Varner
Thank you for joining us, Dr. Madsen.
Susan Madsen
Great to be here.
Wynter Varner
What has your work with UWLP looked like?
Susan Madsen
Well, actually, I started it in 2009, so it's been 17 years. I started it when I was a professor at Utah Valley University, and then shifted six years ago to Utah State University.
I first got the request to do research on why more women weren't going to and graduating from college in 2009. So we started doing research back then.
UWLP was supposed to be a one year project, and then it was a two year project, and from there it has continued. I started getting requests early on for research.
I started initially with research around college attendance and graduation for women, and then it emerged to doing research early on about the status of women in politics, the status of women leaders in business, and then nonprofits and other settings.
It eventually led to more of what we call, "research snapshots," on various issues related to things like the pay gap, women starting businesses, domestic violence, and sexual abuse. It shows where we are in the state.
I thought I was going to just do a short project, but I've spent most of my career being a professor and leading this.
A few years ago, we also started what's called, "A Bolder Way Forward," which is our main initiative within the Utah Women and Leadership Project.
That initiative is run in partnership with people and partners in all 29 counties in the state of Utah, including my peers and folks around the state in Extension. So, many of them are engaged in their own Bolder Way Forward coalition.
We really have grown, and we do lots of speaking and lots of press and radio and all kinds of things. But really, our main focus is to make sure that more girls, women, and their families in Utah are thriving.
What we know is Utah's not great for girls and women in a lot of respects. In some respects, we are, but we have room for improvement.
Utah does have high violence, child sexual abuse, domestic violence, sexual assault, gender based discrimination, and sexual harassment rates.
The presence of women leaders is also low. Even though we've seen some increases there, we still are well below the national average of women serving in leadership roles in nearly all sectors.
Wynter Varner
Have you seen any of UWLP's research make changes at the legislation level?
Susan Madsen
We had 16 legislators attend our Bolder Way Forward summit last year, and they absolutely use our research briefs, snapshots, and other types of reports to learn more about issues.
In fact, we have white papers around policy. In some of them, we explored what every single state was doing and had done in certain public policies, and then we provide some recommendations.
We are the source in Utah for any data metrics on Utah women and leadership. We have dashboards and new reports on anything related to girls and women that we're updating continuously.
Wynter Varner
Do you have any other future hopes for the organization?
Susan Madsen
We really want to continue with the Bolder Way Forward. We want to continue with the Utah Women and Leadership Project, and we plan to do so.
We've recently, in the last few weeks, on the last day of the legislative session, without debate or public knowledge, had a few legislators pull most of our legislative funding.
Fortunately, USU President Mortensen and his team have agreed they wanted to look for funding to get us through our next year, until more ongoing funding for my staff can be found.
We've been working on this for a long time, and the public, the government, nonprofits, businesses, schools, and universities depend on our research for so many things. UWLP really is the basis of driving change.
Wynter Varner
Thank you again for joining us today, Dr. Madsen.
Susan Madsen
Well, it's been good to talk to you, and thanks for your interest.
Wynter Varner
This has been Wynter Varner with the USU Extension Education Highlights. Thank you for tuning in.
