Former Vermont Gov. Madeleine Kunin will help Saint Anselm College launch its first political and civic leadership program for undergraduate women in New England with a keynote address Monday, June 16.
Kunin will discuss her recently published book, Pearls, Politics and Power, in which she examines what it will take for women to assume a larger role in the country’s leadership. 
The lecture will take place at 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm. The event is free and open to the public.
Kunin’s talk will help kick off the National Education for Women (NEW) Leadership New England, a five-day residential program designed to give women the skills to take their place among the next generation of leaders.
Thirteen undergraduate women from four New England states will take part in this inaugural program, which will be offered annually. They will learn from Saint Anselm faculty members and leading women in business, journalism and politics such skills as public speaking, persuasive writing and planning a media strategy.
Fran Wendelboe, state representative; former House Speaker Donna Sytek, and Edda Cantor, executive director of Leadership New Hampshire, will serve as faculty in residence for the program. Students will also hear from state representatives Jane Beaulieu and Marilinda Garcia, Nashua Mayor Donna Lozeau and others.
Madeleine Kunin was the first female governor of Vermont and served as undersecretary of education and ambassador to Switzerland in the Clinton administration. She served on the President’s Interagency Council on Women, and was a member of the US delegation to the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. She is the author of Living a Political Life and is currently a Marsh Scholar Professor-at-Large at the University of Vermont and lectures on history and women’s studies. She also serves as president of the board of the Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC), a nongovernmental organization that she founded in 1991.