EASTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY
Women’s and Gender Studies Newsletter
The group of WGST scholars who traveled to the
National Women’s Studies conference in Atlanta
this month: from left, Dr. Deanna Mihaly,
Nicole Comerford, Dr. Linda Pritchard, Dr.
Solange Simoes, Kristen Tranchida, Nicole
Carter and Library Faculty Suzanne Gray.
December, 2009
Giving to Women’s
and Gender Studies
I believe our new organizational status
begets additional responsibilities toward
our students.
From the Head Desk
Linda K. Pritchard, Department Head (interim)
We have one small endowed scholarship,
Distinguished Leaders, whose spending
value is a whopping $282 this year! The
Margaret M. Smith Fund offers limited
help with textbooks and supplies. We
want to increase both endowments, as well
as provide funding for our Outstanding
Paper awards presented in April and
support students attending conferences.
Thanks for allowing me to look up long enough to report our remarkable
progress. After 39 years, we officially became the Department of Women’s
and Gender Studies this fall. More exciting still is that we are searching for
our first tenure-track faculty position (in Gender and Sexuality) to start next
fall. Our WGST Faculty Affiliates and instructors are beyond dedicated, but
our students have grown in numbers to the point they deserve full-time
attention! Department leadership is still interim for now, but we hope to
announce some stability soon.
You can help! Please go to the
emufoundation.org website for generous
contributions made easy! Just type in
‘women’ or ‘gender’ to see a list of WGST
accounts. Note that Women’s Studies
Development Fund (00677) is all-purpose
which is nice for our programs.
I have irrefutable evidence that we are an outstanding program. I just
returned from the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) where I
heard three of our impressive WGST faculty affiliates, one super graduate
student, and two dynamite undergraduates present terrific papers. One
session was an all-EMU panel of Solange Simoes and Suzanne Gray with
two undergraduates, Kristen Tranchida and Nicole Comerford, presenting
the results of their innovative introductory women’s studies course. In
Restructuring the Autobiographical Text, M.A. student Nicole Carter more than
held her own with Ph.D. panelists, while our now-program advisor, Deanna
Mihaly, demonstrated new ways to read Latin American testimonials.
Looking Ahead: Women’s History Month 2010
The theme for this year is Generations of Women Moving History Forward.
We have some exciting programs proposed for the last three weeks of March.
The festivities will start again with the Kickoff Concert this year. We will also
be celebrating the 90th anniversary of the 19th Amendment.
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WGST Welcomes Fulbright Scholar
Ukrainian Tania Grytsenko shares her background information
I have had many varied experiences
related to gender studies, which have
strengthened my desire to learn more.
In 2006 I graduated the University with
the major Social Pedagogy, Pedagogy
and technique of secondary education,
English language and English literature
and got a Specialist’s Degree. I became
interested in gender studies and chose
the topic for my diploma project from
this field: “Gender policy as a basis of
social work with women abroad”.
I entered the University as a candidate
for the degree of Master in Pedagogy of
Higher Education. In 2007 I defended
the diploma project on the theme:
“Gender studies as a new alternative
educational practice abroad” and got a
Master’s degree. Since 2008 I’m a PhD
student of the Institute of Higher
Education of Academy of Pedagogical
Sciences of Ukraine with a speciality in
Philosophy of Education. As you see,
while studying I’ve defined a theme
that interests me the most and found
myself with a desire to learn more.
I intend to continue enlarging my
knowledge in gender issues studying
here at EMU. The experience and the
knowledge that I’m supposed to get as
a result of studying in the U.S.A. will,
as much as possible, be used for the
improvement and development of
Ukraine’s gender education.
WGSSA Update
President, Taylor Hayden and Vice
President Nicole Carter started the
activities with the Women’s and Gender
Studies Student Association off this
semester by welcoming Tania to EMU at
a reception held in her honor in the
Student Center. The far left photo is
Tania with a few of the group that came
out to welcome her at the reception. We
have established a reading group that
meets weekly to discuss articles of
interest. Since the film series was such a
success last year, we continued it this
year. We started the series off with
Daughters of the Dust, which sparked a
wonderful conversation afterward! The
film series and the reading group will
continue next semester, and we hope to
see you there!
Contact us: WGSSA.EMU@gmail.com
Introducing Our New Advisor: Dr. Deanna Mihaly
Advising students is one of the most
exciting aspects of my job. I enjoy
hearing about students' academic
plans, and learning more about the
path each person takes to complete
his/her degree. WGST students have
been gracious as I take my time
memorizing our program course
offerings, and learning more about
the paperwork involved too. My
research centers on the deliberate
performance of bodily experience
through narrative recollections. At the
NWSA, I presented a paper titled,
"The Tortured Body as a Site of
Memory Enunciation in Latin
American Testimonial Literature."
Each spring, I take a group of
students to Avila, Spain, for an
immersion program. In the future, a
co-curricular Spanish/Women's and
Gender Studies trip would be ideal!
Thanks to Dr. Kate Mehuron, former WGST Advisor!
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Edited by: Taylor Hayden