May 15, 2005, 3:00-5:00 p.m.


Dr. Leitner will discuss the issues that came up immediately after the Revolution and the tremendous changes that had been made in women's lives.  In honor of the month that celebrates Mother's Day, we will discuss the idea of Republican Motherhood (Dr. Benjamin Rush) which developed after the Revolution as a solution to the question of what to do with women, who had been so influential in the Revolution.  Americans were discussing adopting a new form of government like no other.  There was no precedent for women's participation in politics in the manner they did during the Revolutionary period.  The debate at the time concerned three theories of democracy which still concern us today:  sacrifice for the good of the whole; enlightened self interest; and pure democracy--one man [person] one vote and women took part in those debates.

Dr. Leitner earned her post-graduate degrees in history and rhetorical analysis at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth (pronounced: a-ber-ist-with) and California State University, Sacramento.  Her earlier studies were done at the University of California, Davis, CSU Northridge, and Glendale College. For her doctoral studies at the University of Wales, she was awarded a Rotary International Foundation Educational Fellowship to study in their Eighteenth Century British and American Studies program. Leitner was elected three times to the Eureka Union Elementary School District Board of Education. She has served on county, state, and national committees and was instrumental in setting up the communications master plan for the National School Boards Association.  She has worked as a communications/political communications consultant, was active in numerous community and professional organizations such as League of Women Voters, AAUW, California Elected Women’s Association for Education and Research, American Journalism Historians Association, University of London Institute for Historical Research, the Society for Eighteenth Studies and the British Library Association. Leitner has been teaching history and communications at CSUS and in the Los Rios and Sierra Community College districts for more than two decades. She taught at the University of Maryland’s European Division, which included teaching in Germany, Great Britain, Iceland, Benelux, Uruguay, Turkey, and the Azores.  Leitner’s teaching experience includes world history and western civilization as well as American, African American, women’s history and ethnic studies.  Additional areas of research and interest include medieval studies, classical history, and the history of journalism. She currently teaches the History of American Women and U.S. history, as well as communication studies at CSUS.