Researching originating from a women and gender studies course has now received national attention. Marisa Allison and Christine Hernandez recently presented at the National Women's Studies Association conference in Atlanta, GA. The conference, themed as "Feminist Transformation," explored the politics of crisis, suberting the master's tools, and women's studies without walls.
Marisa Allison's poster presentation entitled, The Feminization of Higher Education Consumption: Transitional Experiences of Mason Female Doctoral Studies, examined the ways in which female doctoral students experience graduate school and develop professional identities in an academe that remains male-dominated. Marisa's conclusion is that the insitution views female graduate students as consumers rather than producers of knowledge, thus extending and complicating our understanding of the status of women in the academe.
Marisa's research for this presentation originally began in the 2009-2010 academic year while she was enrolled in the Gender Research Project courses. While reflecting on the experience, Marisa said, "This research has been such a big part of my life for so long now that it was important to share it at a conference like this. I received positive feedback and I'm glad I did it."
Christine Hernandez, program coordinator for women and gender studies, presented a poster entitled, Connections for Transformation: Connecting Feminist Research Methods with Critical Race Theory. The presentation employed feminist research methods and critical race theory to interrogate the role that history/heritage months play on campus climates. The research raises questions about the role history/heritage months on the collective identity of the campus, the collective identity of marginalized groups, and the overall campus climate.
Christine began the research while enrolled in the Gender Research Project in fall 2010. "This is the first time I have been able to present on my research," Christine said, " It was a learning experience and I was happy to represent our program with feminists researchers from all over the country."
Angela (Angie) Hattery, associate director for women and gender studies, helped to facilitate that program proposal process last February. Since that time, Angie worked with the two presenters to construct their posters and to provide additional support and guidance as needed.
"Last winter we had the goal of bringing more Mason student scholars to conferences," Angie said, "We know that we have undergraduate and graduate students doing excellent research and conference presentations are one way to share that research. These are opportunities for students to build their CV and to get feedback from outside scholars. I look forward to continuing this process with our own SEWSA conference and other conferences related to our student research."