So Many Changes
So Many Changes!
As we begin the 2017-2018 academic year at the University of Maine, we do so with many changes here in the WGS program.
- In July we welcomed our new director, Dr. Susan K. Gardner. Susan has been at UMaine for 10 years as a faculty member in the Higher Education program as well as serving in various other administrative capacities on campus. Susan’s scholarship focuses strongly on issues of social justice in higher education environments, with her most recent publications relating to underrepresented women faculty members’ experiences. This line of scholarship emanated from the $3.3M National Science Foundation ADVANCE grant, for which she served as Co-PI.
- Susan was also named the director of the Rising Tide Center. The Rising Tide Center was established through the ADVANCE grant as a way to recruit, retain, and advance women faculty in the sciences at UMaine. When the grant ended in 2016, Provost Jeff Hecker made the commitment to continue and expand the Center’s efforts to include gender equity programs and research for all of the UMaine community. The Rising Tide Center proudly joins the WGS program as its outreach and scholarship arm.
- With this new collaboration came other new aspects, including a new logo, an updated website, and more active social media. Follow us on Twitter, Like us on Facebook, and please join the UMaine WGS group on Linked In.
- Perhaps the biggest change of all was the move from our long-time home in 101 Fernald upstairs to 201 Fernald. We join the Sociology Department on the second floor and look forward to collaborative efforts with them in the future.
- We thank Dr. Naomi Jacobs for her leadership in making these transitions and the move happen.
The First WGS Event of the 2017-2018 Year: A Talk by Dr. Z Nicolazzo
Dr. Z Nicolazzo will present a public talk, “Honor Our Dead and Fight Like Hell for the Living” on Tuesday, September 19 at 5pm in Minsky Recital Hall. Please join us for this free presentation about the trans* community of color by acclaimed scholar Z Nicolazzo, author of Trans* in College. In hir talk, Dr. Nicolazzo will discuss how, amidst the peril and precarity of trans* people, we must come together to organize and keep each other safe. Ze will examine the legacies of resistance, resilience, and love of trans* people, especially the trans* women of color who have all but been erased from what is now known as the “LGBT
Rights Movement.”