Dear GWS Alums and Friends,
I write to you on a chilly February day during which I am starting to wonder if winter will ever end. While there is no snow on the ground, last week I was tricked by what I have heard described as “Fake Spring” and had started to get used to it. Alas, winter temperatures returned a couple days ago…
There has been lots going on lately in the Gender and Women’s Studies Department. Professors Rachel Kuo and Kong Pheng Pha shared a spirited book talk at Mystery to Me Books on February 10. We had a standing-room-only crowd of colleagues from across campus, including many students from GWS. Rachel and Kong both shared with us the inspiration for their books, talking particularly about how their own activism overlapped with what they ended up studying in terms of feminist and queer activism among Asian Americans.
Under the leadership of Assistant Professor Kelly Marie Ward, graduate students and faculty have been meeting every other Thursday this semester to discuss works in progress, anything from a conference paper to a journal article to a book or dissertation chapter. Visiting Assistant Professor Molly Henderson shared a journal article for which she had received a Revise and Resubmit and provided the comments from her reviewers in advance. Everyone in attendance helped her work through how to address the comments in a way that still kept true to the original intent of the article. We can’t wait to see it in print! In the coming months we will be reading drafts of grad students’ qualifying papers.
Twelve undergraduate students are currently taking GWS 660: Internship in Gender and Women’s Studies with our Director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Consortium, Stephanie Rytilahti. They gather weekly to discuss the relationship between the work they’ve done—and continue to do—in the GWS classroom with the skills they will be learning through their internships. This is an excellent way to bridge the classroom and the working world and great preparation for life after graduation. It is one of a number of “high impact practices” that we are so proud to offer in GWS.
Speaking of the classroom, I am currently teaching my first class at UW-Madison and in GWS. It is Proseminar in Gender and Women’s Studies (GWS 860) and enrolls seven of our PhD students. Each week we address a different aspect of professional development within the academy and gender and women’s studies specifically. These have so far included finding mentors; building community; applying for grants; job talks; and how to build and refine a CV (an academic resumé). Probably the best part about the class is that each week we are joined by another GWS professor or two who can offer their thoughts on how they have navigated the subject at hand from their time as a graduate student through their current role in GWS. It’s been a wonderful opportunity for our students and for me to learn so much about all of our talented faculty.
As always, feel free to stop by the GWS offices in Sterling Hall to say hi and tell us what you have been doing out in the world. I wish you all the best for the rest of the winter and hope that spring will be with you soon, wherever you are located.
All best,
Nick Syrett