Judy Rosener ’51

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Featured in the Orange Coast magazine, Judy Rosener is described as a successful “gender warrior” with “wit that can cut glass” and “energy so intense that you’re tempted to hold a fluorescent tube over her head to see if it lights up.” Such words aptly describe Rosener¸ whose more than 40 years of unprecedented accomplishments include professor at the University of California, Irvine Graduate School of Management; leading authority on gender issues in the workplace; author; Los Angeles Times columnist; public servant; community activist; grandmother; and UCLA graduate.

An early advocate and a community volunteer in environmental issues, Rosener was appointed to the State Coastal Commission by Governor Jerry Brown. Combining practical experience with her UCLA major field, which was sociology and organizational behavior, as well as her interests in politics, she began to write about citizen participation in public policy making. During Rosener’s 10 years of service, she was a commission leader because she was thoroughly conversant and committed to the coastal law, could deftly analyze complex development projects brought before the commission and could effectively communicate her viewpoint to her fellow commissioners as well as to the general public.

Returning to school to obtain a master’s degree in political science, she became an outspoken advocate on environmental and citizen participation issues, leading to a teaching role at UCI Extension and then to UCI Graduate School of Management. Pursuing her interest in areas of public policy-making, Rosener obtained her Ph.D. in government.

Rosener’s advocacy for the University of California has been particularly effective because she always has been a critical friend within the university community and never a comfortable apologist for the status quo. Always forthcoming in her criticisms of university policies and practices, she is at the same time a loyal friend and passionate defender of the central values and mission of the university.

Rosener has received the UCI Graduate School of Management Teacher of the Year Award on two occasions, the Women of Excellence Award in Education (Boy Scouts of America), Sales & Marketing Executives of Orange County – Women of Achievement Award, Sea & Sage Audubon Society – Conservation Award and the Spirit of Achievement Award from Entrepreneurial Woman Magazine.

Wife and mother of three grown children, she has contributed to the civic life of Orange County for more than four decades, not only as a leading educator but also as an energetic community volunteer. In essence, she is an educator, not only in her classrooms on the Irvine campus, but to a much broader class of academics, public policy makers and citizens attempting to make sense of the complex world and problems we confront on a daily basis.