We are honored to have Chancellor Sylvia Manning provide opening remarks on women's leadership at UIC. As chancellor of the University of Illinois at Chicago, Sylvia Manning heads the Chicago area's largest university, with 25,000 students, and one of the nation's leading academic research enterprises. Under her leadership, UIC has sustained the upward trajectory that has made it one of the nation's most dynamic metropolitan university campuses.

Prior to becoming chancellor, Manning served for five years as vice president for academic affairs for the University of Illinois system. Manning received her undergraduate degree with honors from McGill University and earned her Ph.D. in English language and literature from Yale University . A former Woodrow Wilson Fellow and Danforth Teaching Fellow, she has written numerous books and articles on Charles Dickens and other Victorian writers. She has continued to teach and write throughout her administrative career. Manning serves on numerous committees including the Commission on Women in Higher Education of the American Council on Education.

We are fortunate to have the opportunity to showcase the accomplishments of one of our very own alumni, Helen Arnold-Massey.  Currently a doctoral candidate in Educational Administration and Foundations at Illinois State University, Arnold-Massey is examining the retention of beginning teachers in high performing, high poverty urban schools.

Arnold-Massey is a graduate of the UIC College of HHDS [now Applied Health Sciences], and has been thrice recognized by the university: City Partner[ 1996], Distinguished Alumni Urban Health Programs [2000] and Outstanding Alumna College of Health and Human Development Services [2001]. She is additionally recognized by the Illinois State Board of Education and the National Council of Negro Women for Excellence in Teaching, as well as the City of Chicago for Superior Public Service in Education.