FROM THE NEST | SUMMER 2024 | 19 the political science department to be more diverse.” Olson thrived at Lehigh. She says she and three other female professors put together a Women’s Studies program. They started a daycare center. They made their voices heard. “Because there were so few women faculty, we all knew each other. We supported each other. We leaned on each other to a great extent,” she says. “We were asked to be on every committee because they wanted at least one woman on the committees. The positive was that … we really became very involved in Lehigh and were very much a part of Lehigh.” Over the years, Olson’s courses have included The American Presidency, Introduction to American Government, U.S. Health Politics and Politics of Women. Olson says she became interested in health care and elder care because she discovered that although the country spent a lot of money on the elderly, they didn’t seem to be thriving. “They tended to be poor, especially elderly women,” she says. During her tenure, Olson took a few side steps to further her knowledge. She worked for a year as a Scholar at the Social Security Administration, for a semester as a gerontological fellow at the Area Agency on Aging in Madison, Wisconsin, and as a Fulbright scholar in Finland. Olson’s books reveal how politics and corporate influence affect health care and the elderly, usually with negative results. Her most recent book—and she says most impactful—is “Ethically Challenged: Private Equity Storms U.S. Health Care,” published in 2022. Olson says it’s the first book that tackled how predatory private equity firms are buying everything from opioid treatment centers to hospice agencies. Their goal is solely profit, and, as a result, the quality of services has declined, she says. The book has received numerous awards, and Olson has received invitations to conferences and speaking engagements. In 2016, Olson combined her research with her personal experience in “Elder Care Journey: A View From the Front Lines.” She chronicled the difficult challenge of navigating the health care system on behalf of her elderly mother, a woman of limited resources. “As I say in the book, I studied elder care for years, decades, but the reality was somewhat more stark,” says Olson. “It’s one thing to say how challenging it is to get help, it’s another to actually try to get help. It was really an eye-opener for me.” At first, Olson managed her mother’s care long distance, but eventually moved her mother from Florida to the Lehigh Valley as her condition deteriorated. “I decided to write a book about it because I think it was important for people to understand what it was like. The conclusion is we need to make a lot of changes to the system. Because the system is not working for elder care. Especially home care,” she says. Hope for the Future In “Wrinkled Rebels,” Olson tells the fictional story of college friends who struggle—individually and collectively—to make sense of their lives now that they are in their 80s. They recall the past, confront their demons and find that, despite decades of separation, they still speak the same language. While Olson tapped into her experiences, the book is not autobiographical, she says. It is, however, an optimistic story that reflects Olson’s attitude toward life. Olson says she is impressed by the students in her orbit. She says they are engaged and enthusiastic and make her hopeful that her passion will be carried on by future generations. Olson has been director of the political science internship program since she arrived at Lehigh and sees students doing great work at local, state and federal levels. Asked what she considers her biggest accomplishment, Olson jokes, “Being here for 50 years.” And she continues to enjoy her work. She will be teaching The American Presidency and the Community Internship classes in the Fall 2024 semester.—Jodi Duckett Olson, left, with her late mother, Dorothy Katz. Her experience in navigating the health care system on her mother’s behalf helped inform an earlier book, “Elder Care Journey: A View From the Front Lines.” STEPHANIE VETO Lehigh recognizes the leadership and accomplishments of Lehigh women like Laura Katz Olson and the impact of coeducation through Soaring Together, a celebration marking 50 years since the admission of undergraduate women. Read more at lehigh.edu/soaringtogether
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTA0OTQ5OA==