The Catt Center for Women and Politics and Jill Pruetz, associate professor of anthropology, have been selected to receive the 2008 Iowa State University Alumni Association Impact Award.
The awards will be presented during the 2008 Homecoming celebration on campus in October.
The Impact Award recognizes individuals, businesses, organizations, or units whose programs or accomplishments brought broad recognition to the university and increased the involvement of ISU constituents in the life of the university during the year prior to being nominated.
The Catt Center was recognized for a number of projects that they created and/or organized during 2007 including bringing presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to campus as the Mary Louise Smith Chair. Sen. Clinton spoke to 1500 individuals at Stephens Auditorium prior to the Iowa Caucuses.
The Catt Center also offered a workshop to help faculty, staff, students and community leaders prepare for the Iowa Caucuses and a campaign training workshop, "Ready to Run," for Iowa women interested in running for political office.
A calendar, "Women Impacting ISU," was also produced by the Catt Center and featured 12 outstanding Iowa State faculty, staff and students who made a significant impact on campus.
Dianne Bystrom is the director of the Catt Center and is a much sought-after expert on women and politics. She was featured in countless newspaper articles, television and radio broadcasts.
Other staff members of the Catt Center include Julie Snyder-Yuly, Chris Fowler and Robin Gogerty.
Jill Pruetz made international news in 2007 with her study reporting that chimpanzees from her site in Senegal were using spear-shaped tools to hunt. Her study, funded by the National Geographic Society, is the first to report the habitual tool use by non-humans while hunting other vertebrates. Jill and her research team documented 22 cases of the chimps fashioning tools to use in hunting smaller primates in cavities of hollow branches or tree trunks.
The discovery was so important that it was ranked second among Wired News’ “Top 10 Scientific Breakthroughs of 2007.”
The subsequent paper on the study in Current Biology created a media firestorm throughout 2007 and one that will continue in the years to come including a multi-page feature article in National Geographic and a PBS “Nova” documentary entitled “Ape Genius.” And just recently she was named a National Geographic Emerging Explorer, just one of 11 individuals so honored.
Jill Pruetz
Catt Center staff with 2008 Spring Mary Louise Smith Chair Madeleine Kunin.
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