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	National Review Board Gets New Chairwoman, Members By Jerry Filteau Catholic News Service [Washington DC] Downloaded June 13, 2005 WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Bishop William S. Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has named a new chairwoman and four new members of the National Review Board that monitors diocesan efforts to protect minors from sexual abuse by church personnel. He named Patricia O'Donnell Ewers, a Chicago-based educational consultant and a board member since last October, as chairwoman until her board term ends in October 2007. Appointed to three-year terms on the board were: -- Dr. Joseph G. Rhode, president of Midland (Texas) Family Physicians. -- William D. McGarry, president of Anna Maria College in Paxton, Mass. -- Thomas A. DeStefano, former interim president of Catholic Charities USA and former executive director of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Brooklyn, N.Y. -- Milann H. Siegfried, a philanthropist and former chairwoman of the board of St. John Medical Center in Tulsa, Okla. She is the wife of outgoing review board member Ray H. Siegfried II, board chairman of the NORDAM Group, a Tulsa-based international aviation and manufacturing company. Bishop Skylstad said the review board has "played a tremendously important role in helping the church confront and deal effectively with the crisis of the sexual abuse of minors in the church." "I continue to be amazed and inspired by the work the NRB has done and continues to do," he said. The board was established by the "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People." The bishops adopted the charter in June 2002 in response to the then-growing national church crisis spurred by revelations about the extent of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests over the past half-century. The board was formed to oversee annual reports on diocesan compliance with the terms of the charter and to commission and oversee two major studies, one on the nature and scope of the abuse and another on its context and causes. Ewers succeeds Nicholas P. Cafardi, dean of the Duquesne University law school in Pittsburgh. A specialist in civil and church law, he had been chairman of the board since last October. From 1990 to 2000, Ewers was president of Pace University; she was the first woman to head the 13,000-student institution with five campuses in New York City and Westchester County. Before that she was an English professor and chief academic officer at DePaul University in Chicago. She has served on numerous boards of corporations, academic associations and nonprofit institutions, including Catholic Charities of the Chicago Archdiocese and the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. Besides Cafardi and Ray Siegfried, outgoing members of the board are New York attorney Pamela D. Hayes and former University of San Diego president Alice Bourke Hayes. New board member Rhode is a father of seven and has served since 2002 on the diocesan review board of the Diocese of San Angelo, Texas. He is chairman of the credentials committee of Midland Memorial Hospital and he established the hospital's ethics committee. McGarry has headed Anna Maria College since 1999. Under his leadership it recently established a center for the prevention of child sexual abuse and abduction and elderly abuse. A father of two, he has held numerous directorships. Before becoming president of Anna Maria he was vice president of administration and finance at Springfield (Mass.) College. He has held similar positions at Albright College in Pennsylvania and Rider University in New Jersey. DeStefano, who headed Brooklyn Catholic Charities for 20 years, was the first layman in that post. A father of two and grandfather of five, he is on the advisory board of the New York City Department of Social Services and has served on a number of other nonprofit and corporate boards. Milann Siegfried, a retired registered nurse, has served on or headed boards of a number of educational, cultural and health care institutions. A mother of six and grandmother of six, she was a member of the Oklahoma State Arts Council and is former president and chairwoman of Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa. In 2003 she was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame.
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