Proposed Slate of Officers and Board Members
The Board members serving new terms will be elected at the Annual Meeting. Elected Board members will serve two-year terms (2021-2023). Each director will be responsible for the portfolio identified herein.
The slate of board officers and directors and brief bios appear below.
Executive Vice President
Catherine Mardikes
Catherine Mardikes is Senior Humanities Bibliographer at the University of Chicago Library, specializing in Classics and the Ancient Near East. Catherine has served as acting president, executive vice president, vice president, and co-leader of the South Side Unit. She has also been active in Voter Services, where she has not only organized a number of voter registration drives, but also put together a number of candidates’ forums.
Vice President – Citizen Engagement
Betty Magness
A civil rights activist for over 40 years, Betty Magness was a Facilitator for the 1996 Democratic National Committee Training Academy and first African American elected State Chair of the Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization (IVI-IPO). Currently, she is Co-Chair of Chicago Women Take Action (CWTA) and the Illinois Political Director of National Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
Betty is currently Director of Issues & Advocacy and has worked with the League of Women Voters for the past few years on voter registration. In January 2020, she represented the League at the Chicago in Focus program on the importance of Census 2020. She plans to work diligently to get voters registered for the upcoming General Election, focusing on the 18- to 35-year-age group.
Secretary
Shirley Moscow Michaelson
Shirley Michaelson is a retired attorney who graduated from the University of Michigan Law School. She was privileged to be a Social Security Administrative Law Judge from April 2005 through December 2016. Before that, she was with the Chicago Regional Attorney's Office of HHS (formerly known as HEW). She rose from staff attorney to a variety of management positions.
Her volunteer activities mirror her life journey. She has been an officer of organizations as diverse as the Old Town School of Folk Music and the Lincoln Park Cooperative Nursery School. Shirley is currently Secretary of her synagogue. Shirley joined LWV Chicago in 2017 and has focused her energy on increasing voter registration.
Director – Collaborations and Partnerships
Tracy Stanciel
Tracy Stanciel serves on the 2020-21 Budget Committee and is an active member of the South Side Unit. Tracy is chairperson of the Douglas Advisory Council’s Safety and Security Committee. Professionally, she has worked for various restaurant groups as an accountant over the years. For many years, Tracy was an education advocate. She was a founding member of Alcott High School and served on various Local School Councils. She lives in The Gap neighborhood in Bronzeville with her husband and two daughters.
Director – Communications
Vanessa Bush Ford
Vanessa Bush Ford, a former business reporter and book reviewer, is now a grant writer with a school for retrieved high school dropouts. She lives in East Garfield Park. Vanessa currently serves on the board of the Women’s Educational Aid Association of Northwestern University and as a community representative on the Local School Council of Westinghouse College Prep. She has formerly served as a board member of Young Chicago Authors, sponsor of the Louder Than a Bomb poetry slam. She is currently on the Board and serves as the chair of the Communications Committee.
Director – Issues & Advocacy
Letina (Tina) Brady Pettis
Tina joined the League of Women of Voters Chicago in 2020. She is a member of the Diversity and Inclusion, Education, Bylaws, and Voter Service Committees, as well as the Southside Unit.
She holds positions in several civic organizations: President of the National Association of University Women–Windy City Branch; a member of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women of the Chicago Metropolitan Chapter and is active on the Ethics, Public, Policy and Procedures, and the Public, Policy and Advocacy Committees; a member of the National Council of Negro Women and is on the Community Service Outreach and Social Action & Advocacy Committees.
She holds a BA from DePaul University, an MA in Legal Studies from Purdue University Global, and a certificate in Diversity and Inclusion from Cornell University.
Director – Membership
Elona Vaisnys
Elona Vaisnys joined the League in Connecticut in 2007. She held officer positions in her local League, served on the LWVCT board for five years as membership director, was a LWVUS national coach for four years, and represented the LWVUS Global Democracy Program in Lithuania. She is an experienced speaker, event organizer, and a debate and forum moderator.
Vaisnys had a by-lined column on civic affairs in the New Haven Register (then, 100,000 circulation), a column in the international Yale Alumni Magazine, produced a radio show on medical/health issues, was a consultant for a medical/health program on CT public television, and wrote/produced 900 scripts for radio on health/medical issues. Her opinion editorials have appeared in Connecticut papers, the Christian Science Monitor, and the New York Times. She was a project manager in the Connecticut Office of Policy and Management and the editor for the five departments of engineering at Yale for 22 years. Pres. Carter appointed her commissioner on a presidential commission.
Vaisnys has chaired the Public Affairs Commission of the (national) Lithuanian American Executive Committee, served on the Lithuanian Republic/World Lithuanian Community Commission (three years), on the Board of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies (AABS), and serves currently on the board of “Lituanus” magazine. She is a member of the Chicago “Dainava” choral ensemble and, until relocating to Chicago in 2020, sang with the Salt and Pepper Gospel Singers (27 years) in Connecticut.
Vaisnys holds an M.A. (Boston College) and a Ph.D. (Yale) in French literature and has studied at the Université Laval (Québec, Canada) and at the Sorbonne (France).
Officers and Directors continuing through June 2022
President: Anne Jamieson
Vice President – Operations: Jane Ruby
Treasurer: Hollis Burgess
Director – Voter Services: Helene Gabelnick
Director – Education: Clare McGuire
Director – Committee on Diversity and Inclusion: Ebony Harris
Director – Fund Development: Molly Bartlett
Director – Event Coordinator: Sharon Welch
Director – Unit Coordinator: Melanie Norstrom
Nominating Committee 2021-2022
Elesha N. Nightingale, Chair
Elesha Nightingale is a third-year law student at UIC John Marshall Law School slated to graduate August 2021. She received a Bachelor’s of Science in Criminal Justice from Southern Oregon University in 2006. She is the CEO of Uplift, an organization that empowers the lives and businesses of those impacted by the criminal-legal system through mentorship. She serves as the Chair of The Chicago Bar Association (CBA) Young Lawyers Section Civil Rights Committee. Areas of expertise include public speaking, strategic planning, organizing community events, and mentoring. Elesha has been a member of the LWV Cook County Criminal Justice Interest Group since 2019 and serves on the LWV Chicago Nominating Committee 2020-21.
Jayde Winters
Jayde Winters works for Northwestern University in the office of Finance Operations in the Office of Procurement. She recently rejoined the League of Women Voters. Jayde is a member of the Northside Unit.
Pat Graunke
Pat Graunke grew up in Chicago, moved to the suburbs when her children were born, and returned to the city 13 years ago. Her first introduction to the League was attending a Briefing on health care, where she met such an interesting, knowledgeable, and impressive group of women, she wanted to be part of the group. She has served on the LWV Chicago Board for eight years and as a Vice President for six years. She has organized and managed the Chicago in Focus program and has been a member of the Board of LWV Lake Michigan Region for six years. For four years she served as Chair of the Membership Committee.
This report is submitted by 2020-21 Nominating Committee members Kate Yoshida (Chair), Stephanie Mack, Catherine Mardikes, Elesha Nightingale, and Susan Sosin.