Happy Almost Summer, GWS and LGBTQ+ Studies Alumni!
Writing this on Tuesday, May 6th, I am filled with gratitude in this moment, relaxing in my big, comfy chair, having given a talk about my book, Digital Girlhoods (2025), earlier this evening to a room filled with wonderful humans at the wonderful A Room of One’s Own bookstore here in Madison.
Amongst the crowd were many former students I shared space and time with across several years working in the GWS department at UW-Madison. What an incredible joy to embrace these folks and connect with them about my scholarship. A moment that feels full circle. Some of the people who came to the event were students I had back in 2018 and 2019, when I was completing my Ph.D. and finishing my dissertation, which ultimately became the book that I got the opportunity to speak on tonight.
These students are now UW-Madison alumni doing remarkable things in their communities; making art, organizing, doing mutual aid, advocacy, housing people who need help, counseling, doing care work, lab work, creating content, feeding people, finishing degrees, and everything in between.
Each May, we prepare to celebrate our GWS and LGBTQ+ graduates as they traverse the stage, closing one chapter of their lives, and launching boldly into the next. We feel that oh-so-familiar bittersweetness as we cheer them on, having spent years with these talented, eager, remarkable students in GWS and LGBTQ+ Studies classrooms across campus. And this coming fall, we will recognize fifty years of GWS classes and programming; a full half-century of brilliant minds coming and going, sucking the marrow out of life on campus, changing it for the good, and bringing what they’ve learned in GWS and LGBTQ+ Studies to all manner of pursuits.
Along with my stalwart companion, GWS Ph.D. student Amber Steiger, your alumni committee has been hard at work making some exciting updates to the Alumni and Friends website. We invite you to join our internal registry to connect with fellow alums, register for the fall semester alumni reading group The Stories Between, check out our Alumni Spotlights (or nominate yourself or someone you know!), and certainly listen to our GWS in Action podcast!
We also have a new email address for all things alumni related! Please reach out to alumni@gws.wisc.edu for your alumni communications, suggestions, and inquiries! We would love to hear from you!
After the pomp and circumstance, and as the graduation ceremonies come to a close, the UW-Madison campus will thin, grow calm, and take on a new shape for the summer. Many people will leave, some will stay, and Madison will embrace the quiet hum until a new semester is upon us come September. This is our own season of hibernation, of picking up old projects, starting new ones, planting seeds, and preparing for the next academic year. Thank you, dear alumni, for being our champions, for supporting our current students, our scholarship, and teaching, and for advocating for the value of our work. In the spirit of joy, resilience, and celebration, we hope you’ll mark your calendars and join us for the 50th Anniversary Celebration on Saturday, October 25th, 2025! More to come on that very soon!
Onward the journey!
With gratitude,
Katherine Phelps, Ph.D.
Teaching Faculty, Gender and Women’s Studies, UW-Madison
GWS Alumni Engagement Coordinator