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Ruth Sweetser

Director, Professional Learning and Business Relations, the Graduate College
Office: Rice Campus room 133
Phone: 630.682.6020
Fax: 630.682.6010
Email: sweetser@iit.edu

Ruth Sweetser is the Director, Professional Learning and Business Relations in the Graduate College/Vice President’s Office, Illinois Institute of Technology. She also serves in the same capacity for the Center for Professional Development. In these positions she works to strengthen relations between the university, and business and industry. Formerly, as Associate Director of IIT’s Rice Campus, she chaired the DuPage Area Engineers’ Week Program from 1984 to 1997, growing it to the largest event of its kind in the nation. In 1995 she established the university’s Internet Access Initiative, which served more than 1,000 members of the business and education communities. Ms. Sweetser served as president of the 7,500 member-strong American Association of University Women, Illinois, Inc. from 1995-1998. For the 2000-2002 biennium she chairs AAUW’s national College/University Relations Committee, having previously served a two-year term on the committee. Since 1996 she has been a member of the Gender Equity Advisory Committee of the Illinois State Board of Education. In August 1997 Governor Edgar appointed her to the Commission on the Status of Women in Illinois, for which she chaired the Education and Training Working Group. In 1999 she was appointed by Governor Ryan to the Commission’s Education and Training Working Group. Illinois State Board of Education Superintendent, Max McGee, appointed Ms. Sweetser to the Education to Careers All Learners Committee in 1999 and to his personal advisory council in 2001. For her professional and community work Sweetser has received numerous awards including the Julia Beveridge Award from Illinois Institute of Technology, Woman of the Year from the Lombard Service League and Joint Honors Award of the Illinois Society of Professional Engineers. She is listed in Who’s Who in American Education, Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in Technology. Ms. Sweetser serves on the board of the SciTech Museum in Aurora, the Advisory Council of the Junior League of Chicago and the Lombard Planning Commission. She earned her Bachelor’s degree at Hope College, Holland, Michigan and her Master’s degree at the University of Chicago where she was a Ford Foundation Fellow. Full Biography