AU professors signed a petition to nominate Janet Yellen as the first female Federal Reserve Chair weeks before her nomination on Oct. 9.
On Sept. 18, an official letter, signed by more than 450 economists, was sent to President Obama supporting Yellen for Federal Chair. 12 of the signatories are professors from AU’s Department of Economics, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.
Caren Grown, a professor in AU’s Economics Department and a signee of the petition, said in an email that Yellen has the traits and qualifications necessary to be the Federal Chair.
“She has been at the forefront of the Fed’s thinking on using monetary policy to fight unemployment and spur job growth, which is nowhere close to where it needs to be,” Grown said in an email. “She is a strong independent thinker, a careful academic, and has an effective leadership style.”
Yellen was a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and is currently the vice chair of the Federal Reserve System, according to the letter.
“Her record speaks for itself,” Grown said.
Yellen will become the only woman on the board of the central bank and the first woman to be elected chair of the Federal Reserve, according to USA Today.
However, Yellen faces many obstacles and constraints as a woman in a leadership position, Professor Maria Floro, co-director of American University’s Graduate Program on Gender Analysis in Economics, said in an email.
“I think President Obama is making history by shattering the glass ceiling that has prevented women from being in the top leadership of economic policymaking,” said Grown in an email.
