Women's Studies

Director's Corner
 

May 11, 2012

Graduation!

I love graduation season, and this year we have more than ever to celebrate:

• Women’s Studies has been thriving at Appalachian State University since 1976 in different colleges and various configurations, but four years ago, under the watchful eye of a visionary Vice-Provost, Dr. Dave Haney, Women’s Studies was given independence as a free-standing program in University College, along with several other interdisciplinary programs. As part of this process, the Women’s Studies faculty, under the creative leadership of Dr. Martha McCaughey, created a major in Women’s Studies (which had formerly existed only as a concentration within the Interdisciplinary Studies degree), and three minors: Women’s Studies, LGBT Studies, and Girls’ Studies.
• This semester, for the first time, we offered a WS capstone seminar, consisting of 5 WS majors, two of whom are graduating this semester and two in the Fall. Our first official “Graduating Class” in our new Women’s Studies major! I am very proud of our students, of what they have accomplished, and of what they plan to do as they move forward with their lives. They and the projects they created in the capstone class are featured in the May 2012 program newsletter, so please read and see what, collectively, the Women’s Studies faculty have accomplished in minting these remarkable students.

  Everything we do in the Women’s Studies program, the teaching, the mentoring, the committees, the research, all of it we do because we as the Women’s Studies faculty are committing to educating students and building leaders who will take the principles of feminism – fairness, equity, respect for all people, justice, service – into their homes, their polling booths, their jobs, and their communities.  One of the favorite feminist authors my students read is bell hooks and the book of hers they love the most is, “Feminism is for Everybody”.  If there is one message I hope our students take out of our classrooms and into the world, it is that FEMINISM IS FOR EVERYBODY!   Congratulations, Women’s Studies Class of 2012!   Donna L. Lillian   Director of Women's Studies