NEWS

Jordan Tompkins presented a paper at the National Women's Studies Association annual conference in Atlanta, GA in November 2011. From the left, below: Jordan Tompkins, Lindsay Jones (GSU delegate), Kirsten Zeiter (presenter from Grand Valley State University), and Ashley Thorpoe (GSU delegate).

Brenda Marina (Leadership, Technology and Human Development) presented a paper on "Issues and Perspectives on the Glass Ceiling: A Cross-Cultural Analysis" at a Cross-Cultural Research Exchange Conference at Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco in June. She will also present at a Global Trends conference in Costa Rica in December on "Academe's Glass Ceiling, a Trend or Tradition? A Cross-Cultural Analysis." And recently, she received the 2011 College of Education Jack Miller Award for Scholarship and Creative Activities.

Lori Amy (Writing and Linguistics) recently presented a paper, "WW II Legacies, Cold War Containment, and Albania's Bunker-Building Campaign" at the Association for the Study of Nationalities Conference in Moscow. She and Krista Wiegand (Political Science) are organizing a study abroad trip for summer 2012 to Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Greece. The course will cover traumatic memory, narratives of nation and identity, and ethnic conflict and territorial dispute in the Balkans. Students will have lectures from personnel working with the United Nations, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, American Embassy, and NGOs working on civil society and democratization.

Robert Pirro (Political Science) published a book chapter, "Homer's Lies, Brad Pitt's Thighs: Revisiting the Pre-Oedipal Mother and the German Wartime Father in Wolfgang Petersen's Troy," in Michael Cornelius, ed., Of Muscles and Men: Essays on the Sword and Sandal Film (McFarland, 2011).

Amy Hackney (Psychology) will present a poster with former Psychology M.S. student Gwenith Blount-Nuss at the 2012 Society for Personality and Social Psychology Annual Conference. The presentation is titled "The Effects of Stereotype Threat on State Levels of Stigma Consciousness and Overall Performance on a Stereotype-Relevant Task."

Lori Amy (Writing and Linguistics) has received a grant from the American Council of Learned Societies Committee on European Studies to present her paper, "NGOs and Civil Society in Albania: Where We've Been, Where We are, Where We're Going." The presentation is part of the sixth annual European Consortium for Political Research General Conference to be held next month at the University of Iceland. This work is part of her ongoing research about traumatic memory under communism and in transition.

Tyson Davis (Communication Arts) has produced a 30-minute program featuring oral histories of Bulloch County, GA women. From the farm to the courthouse, Bulloch County women share oral histories of the roles women played in the workforce and of Statesboro pastimes. They recall how the downtown district has evolved and changed over the last 90 years. The program airs on Channel 97 at 6:30 PM, midnight, and noon.

Sandra Peacock (History, WGST Director) is the recipient of the 2011 Ruffin Cup, an award bestowed by the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.

Jordan Tompkins (Anthropology major/WGST minor) reports that in April, representatives from Georgia Southern University’s National Organization for Women (NOW) presented a check in the amount of $2,225 to Better Awareness Towards Abuse, or BASTA, located in Lyons, GA. Every year, NOW puts on a production of ‘The Vagina Monologues’ by Eve Ensler to help raise awareness of women’s issues. A portion of the proceeds go to a local charity or women’s group, and this year NOW chose BASTA as the beneficiary. BASTA’s main goal is to educate Latina and farm worker women on how to prevent and identify abusive relationships. In addition, they help women find the resources they need to leave an abusive relationship. To date, BASTA has been responsible for providing information and training to over 300 women (with a consistent support group of 25), created curriculum for law enforcement training, and trained Promotoras de Salud, women who serve as liaisons in the community. Jordan will also be co-leading a roundtable at the annual meeting of the National Women's Studies Association. The topic will be “Production and Performance of the Vagina Monologues: A Comparative Case.”

Elizabeth Butterfield (Literature and Philosophy) has an article, "Days and Nights of a New Mother: Existentialism in the Nursery," published in Motherhood: The Birth of Wisdom, ed. Sheila Lintott, Wiley-Blackwell 2010, pp. 65-76. The volume is part of the Wiley Philosophy for Everyone series.

Michelle Haberland (History) is the recipient of the 2011 CLASS Award of Distinction in Service.

Trent Maurer (Child and Family Development) is the recipient of two awards in 2011: The Georgia Southern Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Award, and the University System of Georgia Board of Regents Award for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

Laura Shelton (History) will present a paper, "Curanderas and Midwives on the Periphery of Northern Mexico, 1820-1880," at the Fifteenth Berkshire Conference on the History of Women in Amherst, MA in June.

Zulema Ibarra (MASS graduate student, Anthropology focus) presented a paper, "Increasing Interconnectivity in Domestic Violence Prevention Strategies: A Case Study," at the Society for Applied Anthropology Conference in Seattle, WA on March 30, 2011. The paper focused on her applied ethnographic fieldwork for a nonprofit organization in rural Southeast Georgia that offers resources and educational workshops for Latina migrant women experiencing domestic violence. Dr. Heidi Altman (Sociology/Anthropology) also presented a paper at the same meeting on language-based models for indigenous midwifery.

Beverly Graham and Chris Geyerman (Communication Arts) won the top paper in the Gender Studies division at the Southern States Communication Association held in Little Rock, Arkansas March 23-27. The paper was entitled "Health as Hegmonic Masculinity: The Symbolic Construction of Health in Men's Health and Men's Fitness Magazines." Communication Arts students presented papers as part of the 21st Annual Theordore Clevenger Jr. Undergraduate Honors Conference in association with the meeting in Little Rock. They are:
Chelsea McGuire, "When Pigs...Walk? Partriarchal Ideology in the Trojan Evolve Narrative"
Chris Leahy, "He Speaks Fluent French, In Russian: The Most Interesting Hegmonic Man in the World"
Cori A. Mylander, "It's a Man's World: Patriarchal Ideology in the Film Pretty Woman"

Amy Fix (MFA candidate, Art) is the recipient of this year's Women's and Gender Studies Research/Project Award for Graduate Student Work. Amy is a Statesboro, GA native and the daughter of Linda Fix, Ed. S. and Michael Fix. She received her BFA in Drawing from Georgia Southern in May 2009 and is currently pursuing her MFA degree in two dimensional media, focusing on painting and drawing. She hopes eventually to teach at the university level. Amy was recognized for a series of paintings and her interpretation of the works through the lens of feminist theory and her study of women in art. Her project, titled "Skin Deep: The Elusive Aphrodite," was supervised by Prof. Patricia Walker (Art) and Dr. Lisa Costello (Writing and Linguistics).

Victoria Thomas (Justice Studies major/WGST minor) is the recipient of this year's Women's and Gender Studies Research/Project Award for Undergraduate Student Work. Victoria was recognized for her paper titled "Dating and Relationship Advice that Reinforces Traditional Gender Roles," supervised by Dr. Heidi Altman (Anthropology). Victoria is from Albany, GA and is the daughter of Lorenzo and Tamela Thomas. She will be graduating in May and hopes to work for various non-profit organizations that specialize in women’s issue and/or GLBTQ issues as a legal advocate.

Kimberly Robinson (College of Education, Educational Leadership program) is the recipient of this year's Linda Rohrer Paige Service Award in Women's and Gender Studies for her work establishing and serving as director of a non-profit organization for mentoring and supporting the development of girls age 6-17, Open Arms Children's Network/Ordered Steps for Girls. Kimberly is an Ed.D. student in Education Leadership with an emphasis in Higher Education. She is currently completing her dissertation research investigating "Institutional Factors contributing to the under-representation of African American women in higher education: Perceptions of women in leadership positions." She plans to teach in higher education while mentoring young women to persist in higher education achievement and advancement. She hopes that her research will assist in generating strategies from African American women currently in leadership positions that will assist women in navigating the barriers in higher education through the use of meaningful accounts of lived experiences. Kimberly is originally from Waycross, GA but has been in Statesboro since 1991 when she entered Georgia Southern University as a freshman. She has a large extended family but enjoys spending quality time with her mother, Susie Williams, and three children: Brandon, Kristopher, & Eniya Robinson.

Jordan Tompkins (Anthropology major/WGST minor) is one of 23 women students chosen from across the nation to participate in the Practicum in Advocacy at the United Nations, a week-long program which offers an opportunity to observe how the UN works to address issues requiring multilateral engagement and coordinated action between governments and civil society groups. She will be a delegate to the annual Commission on the Status of Women meetings to be held from Feb. 22-March 4 at the UN headquarters in New York City. The practicum on the Commission on the Status of Women is sponsored by the Center for Women's Health and Human Rights at Suffolk University, Boston; the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and the National Women's Studies Association, with assistance from Physicians for Human Rights.

Laura Shelton (History) has just published her first book, For Tranquility and Order: Family and Community on Mexico’s Northern Frontier, 1800-1850 (University of Arizona Press, 2010).

Heidi Altman (Sociology/Anthropology) taught a new course, “Language and Gender,” in Fall 2009.

Heidi Altman and Barbara Hendry (Sociology/Anthropology) have mentored graduate students in a variety of gender studies projects in 2009-10. One presented a paper on language and gender at the meeting of the Southern Anthropological Society conference in Savannah, and two others have internships with Southeast Georgia Communities Project. One internship involves prenatal care for Hispanic migrants and another is evaluating a domestic violence program aimed at Latina immigrants.

Michelle Haberland (History) has an article, “Look for the Union Label: Organizing Women Workers and Women Consumers in the Southern Apparel Industry,” included in Jonathan Daniel Wells and Sheila R. Phipps, eds., Entering the Fray: Gender, Politics and Culture in the New South (University of Missouri Press, 2009). She was also named chair of the Southern Association of Women Historians’ Graduate Committee for 2010-2011. This committee awards the Jacquelyn Down Hall Prize every two years. Dr. Haberland also supervised a non-thesis project for a History M.A. student.

Patricia Price (Writing and Linguistics) recently published a journal article, “Postmodern Feminist Pedagogy in a First-year Writing Program,” in Peitho: Journal of the Coalition of Women Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition. She also published a review, “Feminist Pedagogy Workshop 2009,” in Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy. She and GSU undergraduate student Reuben Hayslett co-presented a paper at the Georgia Conference on Information Literacy in Savannah, GA in September. Their paper was titled “A Web-based Bulletin Board as Edward Soja’s ‘Third Space’: ESL and LGBTQ Students Claim Home Turf.”

Trent Maurer (Child and Family Development) co-authored (with D.W. Robinson) an article that appeared in the journal Sex Roles in 2008. Their article, “Effects of attire, alcohol, and gender on perceptions of date rape,” has been one of the 50 most-requested articles in the journal every six months since its publication. He was also a finalist for the “Best Research Article on Men in Families by a New Professional,” Men in Families Focus Group, National Council on Family Relations, 2008.

Trent has also presented a paper, “Evaluation of a classroom exercise on social distance and discrimination,” at the annual Best Practices in Teaching Psychology Conference in Atlanta in October 2009. He supervised student research as well, serving as mentor to two students who presented at a variety of research symposia.