Winter 2015 Edition
Alumni & Friends Magazine
ohiowomen: who, what?
Why get involved with ohiowomen? Ask three alumnae who attended the Cleveland Kickoff in September.
December 10, 2015
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Yolanda Cherry Sutyak, BSED ’59 (left), said her “woman-ness” didn’t get in her way in the professional world. She talks with fellow alumna Connie Lawson-Davis, BSED ’67, at the ohiowomen Cleveland kickoff.
Yolanda Cherry Sutyak, BSEd ’59
Cleveland native and Parma-based transplant Yolanda Cherry Sutyak says women in her day had basically two professional tracks to take as a student. “Back in my era, if you went to college and you were a woman, you either went into nursing or teaching.”
She chose the latter—and thrived, earning the Northeast Ohio Teacher of the Year Award in 1979.
“I never felt put out about anything because I was a woman,” says Sutyak, who takes a no-nonsense approach to life.
Her 32-year career entailed teaching various K-6 grades in Parma and in Cleveland’s Catholic school system as a reading consultant, then in special education. Upon earning a master’s degree in special education at Cleveland State University (CSU), she spent 26 years at Independence Primary as a special education and intervention specialist. After she retired, this first-generation high school and college graduate became a student teacher supervisor for CSU for 12 years.
Past-president of the ĂŰčÖĘÓƵ Alumni Association’s Greater Cleveland Women’s Club, Sutyak, who with husband Tom has three children, attended the Cleveland event to “represent the club, see what ohiowomen was about and to meet new people.”
Nicki Romeo Arkwright, BSCHE ’97
Nicki Romeo Arkwright exemplifies the ideal of having a work-life balance.
She enjoyed being a production manager at a major Cleveland-based chemical company and happily shared parenting a son with her husband, Scott, a pediatric nurse practitioner at the Cleveland Clinic.
When son number two arrived, Arkwright requested to switch to part time, but the company said no, compelling her resignation. She had no regrets, but missed her professional responsibilities—and the reduced income, as the household salary decreased by half.
One year later, the company called, wanting her back—this time, on her own terms of 30 hours per week. Even though she knows she did the right thing by focusing on childrearing, “It was a weight off my shoulders to know that [I was] needed in ways other than helping [my] three-year old and nine-month old.”
Arkwright attended the Cleveland ohiowomen kickoff to see how her stor