Hello dear GWS and LGBTQ+ Studies Alumni,
As I write this, it is a stunning fall day here in Wisconsin. The wind is encouraging the remaining leaves to loosen their grip from the trees, fall to the now-dormant grass, and curl up for the winter. The smell of late autumn is in the air. We put away the remnants of spooky season and gear up for the season of little light. It’s a time of taking stock.
We got just such an opportunity a few weeks ago when we celebrated the 50th Anniversary of Gender and Women’s Studies on the weekend of October 24th and 25th at Sterling Hall and Monona Terrace here in Madison. The morning of the 24th dawned brilliant blue and gold. One of those days that feels anticipatory. A welcome chill. The kind of day that invites deep breaths and exhalations filled with gratitude. I had the joy of kicking off the celebrations by giving an interview on radio station 89.9 WORT with Andy Moore on the 8 o’clock Buzz show. I hope you’ll give a listen here.
Over the course of that two-day celebration, we stepped back through time to reflect on the near half-century legacy of our department’s flagship course, GWS 103: Gender, Women, Bodies, and Health, with a panel discussion that hosted the two faculty who started the class back in the late 1970s, Mariamne Whatley and Nancy Worcester, as well as more than a dozen teaching assistants who spanned decades of experience in our department.
On Saturday October 25th, we kicked off day two of the festivities with a visit from Madison’s own Raging Grannies, singing together and learning about the incredible community building and political work this rollicking, frolicking, raucous, radical group of older women does in our city. Another highlight was hearing from emeritus faculty who shared the origin story of the Women’s Studies program at UW-Madison, which would go on to become the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies. Over the years, we have grown, deepened, and expanded into a highly sought after space by UW-Madison students, offering cutting edge curriculum, expert teaching, and remarkable research projects. What a moment to come together to dance, eat, drink, laugh, and embrace. It was a wondrous thing to see alumni, emeritus faculty, current faculty, staff, and students come together to honor this major milestone of 50 years.
Your alumni committee (Amber Everhart and I) have been busy bees running programming including our alumni reading group, The Stories Between, our podcast GWS in Action (which just released its ninth episode and recorded the tenth!), and cooking up some exciting offerings for the spring semester. The 50th anniversary celebrations took up much of our attention this fall, and we are leaning into a moment of respite as we toast to a job well done.
Throughout this newsletter, you’ll see moments of joy, exaltation, remembrance, and reflection. Moments captured on camera and in the written word that consolidate a feeling of steadfastness as we recognize, and feel in our bones and in our guts, that the existence of this department was hard fought and hard won. We intend to keep showing up every single day to do this work because, as Chicana feminist Elizabeth “Betita” Martinez says, “The heart just insists on it.”
Onward the journey!
With gratitude,
Katherine Phelps, Ph.D.
Teaching Faculty, Gender and Women’s Studies, UW-Madison
GWS Alumni Engagement Coordinator