Godlewski
When Sarah Godlewski recalls her time at George Mason University, she is appreciative of the focus on experiential learning.
So it was natural for her to draw a line from her winning campaign for student body president at Mason in 2003 to her winning campaign for Wisconsin state treasurer in 2018.
“I remember when I announced [my intention to run] for student body president, it was very similar,” said Godlewski, BS Integrative Studies ’04. “I had a kitchen cabinet that thought through our messages. We worked to get endorsements, and I raised money so we could do different things to get our message out.”
“A lot of that was no different, quite frankly, from running for state treasurer,” she said. “What are your main messages, and how are you going to identify and get endorsements and distinguish yourself?”
Godlewski was one of several Mason alumni who won elections in November, including Jim Hagedorn, BA Government and Politics ’93, who represents southern Minnesota’s First Congressional District; Mark King, MS Organization Development and Knowledge Management ’15, who represents Hillsborough District 33 in New Hampshire; and Dan Leedy, BA Government and Politics ’80, a county court at law judge in Austin County, Texas.
Godlewski was always involved in campus politics at Mason. She was a student senator as a freshman, a committee chairman as a sophomore and speaker of the student senate as a junior.
“She was obviously a major student government leader,” said University Professor Peter Stearns, who was Mason’s provost when Godlewski was a student. “She was very bright, very articulate, really very energetic without being at all stressed.”
Those qualities will come in handy. As treasurer, Godlewski is not only Wisconsin’s fiscal watchdog, but she is also the state’s chief investor, with revenues earmarked mostly for public schools.
She also said she will push an agenda of economic empowerment that includes child savings accounts seeded by the state, expanded retirement savings and addressing the wage gap that affects women.
“When I talk about economic empowerment, we’re talking about ways in which we can provide mechanisms to help lift everybody up,” said Godlewski, who is cofounder of a firm that invests in socially responsible businesses. “One of the things I experienced is that companies would talk about [how], ‘You can’t do good things and make a good return,’ which is just bogus. Renewable energy is a win-win. Affordable health care is a win-win.”
So is working across the political aisle to get things done.
“One of the reasons I’m successful is because of what I learned at Mason,” Godlewski said. “Mason always taught me to think out of the box, to think bold and different. I carry that with me when I go on the trail and when I’m in office.”