Florida Women Power the Vote: Leadership 2020

Join us in Orlando for our 2020 Leadership Conference!

This two-day conference will include workshops, panel discussions and the opportunity to meet fellow empowered women helping shape our state's future.

Click here to see our working agenda.

The mission of the conference is to inspire and guide League members through strategic conversations and explore new ideas in leadership practice and instruction.

This year’s conference is extra special because it's featuring our statewide centennial celebration! We hope to see you there as we celebrate our first century of work and look ahead at the next 100.

Click here to book hotel rooms in our room block.

Keynote Address

In 1994 Dr. Carolyn Jefferson-Jenkins, a 1974 graduate of Western College served as the 15th President of the League of Women Voters of the United States, a political advocacy and membership organization. As president of the League, Dr. Jefferson-Jenkins worked to increase citizen participation in the electoral process and lead the education and advocacy work of the League on public policy issues. She was the first woman of African-American descent to head the League. Dr. Jefferson-Jenkins is a recognized authority on the voting rights of African Americans and is the author of The Road to Black Suffrage and One Man One Vote: The History of the African-American Vote in the United States. While a student at Western College in Ohio she majored in Social Science and Education and received her Master's in Education in Administration and Supervision from John Carroll University in Ohio. She then obtained her Ph.D. in Urban Education and Administration from Cleveland State University in 1991. Jefferson-Jenkins began her career as a public school teacher and administrator in 1974 in which she served for 20 year. She joined the League in 1982. At the time of her presidency there were more than 120,000 members in all 50 states. Dr. Jefferson-Jenkins served two terms as the president of the League of Women Voters. In the last year of her presidency, 1998, Jefferson-Jenkins promoted the Wired for Democracy project, one of the earliest efforts to increase citizen participation particularly among the young via the newly developed Internet. In 1998 Jefferson-Jenkins became chair of the League of Women Voters Education Fund, a post she held until 2002. Beginning in 2002 she participated in democracy building efforts in Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, the Netherlands, Israel, and eight African countries through her work with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in these nations. Jefferson-Jenkins was also a senior associate for America's Choice Schools at the National Center on Education and the Economy in Washington, D.C. She also serves on the Board of the Women Ambassadors Program at Howard University in Washington, D.C. and in 2010 she was named to the Board of the Colorado Judicial Institute.