An Inspired Choice for Earhart Award

Judy Rosener, professor and former assistant dean at UC Irvine’s Graduate School of Management, received the Amelia Earhart Award on Thursday for inspiring women to “soar to new heights.”

About 500 people, many of them Orange County women who had soared to the top of their professions, paid tribute to Rosener at a luncheon held at Le Meridien Hotel in Newport Beach. This is the third year that UCI Extension Women’s Opportunities Center has given the Earhart award. The luncheon raised about $15,000 for the center.

Breaking Barriers

“I’ve received a lot of awards, but this one has special meaning because it talks about education and about women, and those are things I care passionately about,” Rosener said at a pre-luncheon reception.

That much is evident from her work. Rosener is the author of “Ways Women Lead,” a widely quoted article published in the Harvard Business Review, and co-author of the book, “Workforce America--Managing Cultural Diversity as a Vital Resource.” A second soon-to-be-published book is titled “America’s Competitive Secret: Women.”

While she professed to have little in common with the daring aviator except that “we both wear a Size 9 shoe,” Rosener conceded that she shared some of Earhart’s pioneering spirit.

“I have been known to take personal and political risks,” she said.

Rosener received the award for her work in the fields of women in the workplace, cultural diversity and public policy.

“We never even considered another person. She’s it,” said Elizabeth Tierney, luncheon chairwoman.

Julie Newcomb, chief executive officer of Costain Homes who has appeared with Rosener on the “Today” show and other TV programs talking about women’s issues, said: “She’s helped women in innumerable ways--by her clarity, her ability to crystallize issues for women and her scholarship that supports what she says.”

The economic playing field for men and women has not been leveled, Newcomb said, “but I think Judy’s added a few rules to the playbook.”

The Two Judys

Linda White, director of the Women’s Opportunities Center, dubbed the luncheon program the “Judy and Judy Show,” because Rosener’s longtime friend, Judith Krantz, decked head to toe in Chanel, served as keynote speaker.

“She appealed to me immediately,” said Krantz, author of six best-selling novels, including “Scruples,” “Princess Daisy” and the Orange County-based “Dazzle.”

“She was the tallest Judy I’d ever met,” joked the petite Krantz.

Krantz told the audience she expects women named Judy to be “fluffy, slightly diminutive and frivolous” contrasted with the more serious-sounding Judith, then drew laughs when she asked: “What am I doing with Dr. Judy Rosener’s name, and what is she doing with mine?”

Krantz has called Rosener when researching her novels about hard-driving heroines.

“She’s done so much I can’t even begin to think about it,” she said.

Pretty in Pink

The luncheon was held in Le Meridien’s ballroom, where tables were draped in pink cloth and decorated with glass bowls of pale pink and ivory roses.

For lunch, chefs prepared a cream of broccoli soup, Hong Kong chicken salad with bean sprouts, snow peas and chicken in a sesame dressing and pastry baskets filled with dark chocolate mousse, topped with strawberries and apricot sauce.

Proceeds from the $50-per-person event will be used to enhance the center’s course offerings and counseling services, provide course scholarships and reduce the cost of membership and workshop fees.

Dr. Melvin Hall, dean of UCI Extension who presented the award, noted that the center has served more than 100,000 people since opening in 1970.

Among the guests were Jean Aldrich, Harry Bubb, Peggy Clay, Michael Forrest, Ellen Gordon, Slane Holland, Meredith Khachigian, Chris Lindsay, Molly Lyon, Suzanne Peltason, Maria Dubravka Pineda, Jo Ellen Qualls, Lori Munoz-Reiland, Judith Ryan, Donna Shannon, June Wankier and Wendy Weber.