LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ -- Four Rider University student leaders have received a $500 grant from the Center for the American Woman and Politics (CAWP) to enhance leadership programming for female students at the University.

The students are (with hometown, class year, and major):

All four students were selected to represent Rider at the New Leadership Program, an innovative education program organized by CAWP, a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. The program introduced students to successful women in politics and explored leadership issues with women from insitutions across New Jersey.

One major goal for each contingent was to develop a public leadership project, seek funding through grants, and implement it during the upcoming year.

Rider's student representatives, under the guidance of Jacqueline Simon from the University's Education Enhancement Program, developed a program aimed to increase the awareness of Rider's Orienting Women Leaders (OWL) program, which in turn will help more female students to realize their leadership potential. The grant from CAWP will fund enhancements to the program, including workshops focusing on leadership experience, time management, effective communication, and self and group empowerment. The students also intend to explore ways of maintaining a consistent membership base for OWL.

"Through this project, we hope that female students will gain more self-confidence in their own leadership abilities," read the students' proposal. "By realizing the advantages offered by OWL, they will be more likely to become permanent members...thus ensuring OWL's existence in the years to come."

Dr. Phyllis Frakt, vice president for academic affairs and provost of Rider University, is one of the advisers of the OWL program.

"OWL was founded for Rider students by women from Rider's faculty and administration," she said. "Passing the leadership to OWL students is critical to what OWL is all about. We are proud that our student representatives won this grant and will lead OWL into its next phase of development."

The OWL program, founded in 1996 at Rider and sponsored in large part by a gift from the ARAMARK Corporation of Philadelphia, provides motivation, resources, and support to help women students become leaders at Rider and in their later careers. Specific objectives include connecting students to on- and off-campus student and professional women leaders in areas of student interest, providing workshops on leadership skills, helping students discover opportunities at Rider to promote personal and professional growth, and bringing students together for mutual support.