Chair
I have been having many conversations with students and colleagues this year about students’ learning experiences and education in gender, race, sexuality, and women’s studies. Students are enthusiastic about engaging with these topics through intellectually rigorous material, critical thinking, and creative collaboration. They have many stories to share about the profound value of this learning in their life and work. It is vital to share these stories to promote a clear and accurate understanding of the significance of our field.
This spring, we collaborated with colleagues in and outside of UF on events to feature our students’ stories and their significant contributions to our communities. For example, our alum Terri Bailey’s work on a racial justice art making Mellon Humanities in Place project was featured in the Women’s Entrepreneurship Summit in collaboration with the College of Business. Our alum Gabrielle Magid’s work of founding the non-profit Stronger than Stigma was featured in a Career Pathways panel with graduates from women and gender studies programs across the state of Florida. Our alumni Dr. Lorna Bracewell’s and Dr. Karina Vado’s research on constructions of race and gender was featured in academic career events in collaboration with the Department of Political Science and Department of English.
Similarly, at a time of growing emphasis on experiential learning and career readiness in higher education, we are proud to have a long-standing history of providing students with rich community-based applied learning opportunities. We place over 200 students in over 30 different community sites per year. Through these experiences, students learn critical skills and provide valuable service in community centers, education programs, health clinics, victim services, and other settings that serve our communities. Community engagement is also embedded in many of our courses. As an example, this newsletter issue features a student-led initiative through our ecofeminism class. Students applied their knowledge and skills to organize a collaboration with a community organization to clean Florida’s waterways.
The texture and profound impact of these experiences for students is difficult to capture in the institution’s spreadsheets and metric generation efforts designed to codify experiential learning and career readiness. It is in conversation, reflection, and records such as this newsletter that we get to see our students’ rich narratives of learning, knowledge-production, community building, and action.
Our students’ stories are inspiring and a guiding compass for our work ahead.