Whitney Ransome to Receive Moorestown Friends School Award

Alumni Association to Present Award on May 2

03/10/2008- MFS Press Release

Moorestown, New Jersey -- Whitty Ransome '63, Co-Executive Director of the National Coalition of Girls Schools, has been selected to receive the 2008 Alice Stokes Paul 1901 Merit Award from her K-12 alma mater, Moorestown Friends School (MFS). 

The award will be presented on Friday, May 2, at the Dinner Among Friends, an alumni banquet that kicks off the school's Alumni Weekend festivities.

Established by the school's Alumni Association, the award is presented annually to an individual who uses his or her education at MFS to make the world a better place, who has achieved a level of excellence in his or her field, and who has made significant contributions to the community.

Prior recipients include Nobel Prize-winning scientist Joseph Taylor '59, pioneering AIDS researcher Ken Mayer '68, and U.S. Ambassador to Suriname Lisa Bobbie Schreiber Hughes '76. 

The award is named for Alice Stokes Paul (MFS Class of 1901), a noted suffragist and author of the Equal Rights Amendment, whose work resulted in the establishment of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which secured voting rights for women.

Ransome started at MFS in the first grade. As an Upper School student she played field hockey, basketball and was the lacrosse team captain, and outside of school was a Philadelphia-area junior golf champion. 

She has been a lifelong alumna volunteer for the school, initially as a class correspondent, and later as an instrumental leadership volunteer with numerous committees and fund-raising campaigns.

Like Alice Paul, Ransome has been a dedicated advocate for equity for girls and women, beginning with her activism with the National Organization for Women and the Equal Rights Amendment, and culminating in 1991 with the founding of the National Coalition of Girls' Schools, of which she has been Co-Executive Director ever since. 

The National Coalition of Girls' Schools conducts research, promotes best practices, supports public outreach activities and sponsors academic conferences with a focus on girls and learning.  It serves its 127 member schools as they prepare young women to be the visionaries and leaders that will make the world a better place.  

Ransome has written extensively on the subject of girls in relation to math, science, technology, and financial literacy.  She has been quoted in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, Baltimore Sun, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, and Boston Globe, and has appeared on ABC, NBC, CNN and NPR.

About the School

Moorestown Friends School is a day school founded by the Religious Society of Friends (also known as Quakers) in 1785. Today the school enrolls 725 students from Preschool through Grade 12. Moorestown Friends School is a community dedicated to the pursuit of educational excellence for a diverse student body within an academically rigorous and balanced program emphasizing personal, ethical and spiritual growth.

Media Contact: Mike Schlotterbeck, (856) 914-4434