{"id":208740,"date":"2024-03-27T07:15:46","date_gmt":"2024-03-27T11:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=208740"},"modified":"2024-03-27T09:37:47","modified_gmt":"2024-03-27T13:37:47","slug":"mellon-foundation-awards-100000-to-uconn-womens-gender-and-sexuality-studies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2024\/03\/mellon-foundation-awards-100000-to-uconn-womens-gender-and-sexuality-studies\/","title":{"rendered":"Mellon Foundation Awards $100,000 to UConn Women\u2019s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, a philanthropic organization dedicated to supporting the arts and humanities, has awarded $100,000 to UConn\u2019s Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) program as part of its \u201cAffirming Multivocal Humanities\u201d initiative.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

WGSS Director Sherry Zane and Associate Director Ariana Codr co-wrote the grant proposal that netted the program its first major external grant.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“One of Higher Learning\u2019s core aims is to elevate humanities knowledge that informs more complete and accurate narratives of the human experience and lays the foundation for more just and equitable futures,\u201d wrote Phillip Brian Harper, program director for Higher Learning at the Mellon Foundation, in the call for grant submissions. \u201cThe study of race, gender, and sexuality is crucial to this objective, particularly at this pivotal moment in the history of the United States. Indeed, research and teaching in these fields epitomizes the essential exercise of academic freedom within the US higher education system.”\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are incredibly grateful to the Mellon Foundation for putting together this call,\u201d says Codr. \u201cThe Foundation understands that we\u2019re facing a political, social, and economic moment where this kind of work is being devalued, if not actively attacked. <\/span>It is crucial that programs like WGSS at UConn be maintained and supported if this basic principle of higher education is to be upheld.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

UConn WGSS, formally established in 1974 as UConn Women\u2019s Studies, is an interdisciplinary program housing faculty from various schools and colleges. Over 40 students are currently majoring in WGSS, while upwards of 150 students have declared minors (placing the program in the top 11 minors offered at the university).\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But the program\u2019s reach extends beyond these metrics. Hundreds of UConn students annually enroll in WGSS classes to meet general education requirements, round out courseloads, or satisfy lifelong curiosities about systems of oppression and theories of resistance.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEven though we are a small program, we do a great service to the university by teaching students how <\/span>to build a supportive and critical scholarly community that advances our understanding of the construction and reproduction of inequity, as well as resistance to it,\u201d says Zane.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWGSS students are incredibly dedicated,\u201d says Codr. \u201cThey find something in our program that I think is sometimes hard to find elsewhere \u2013 a sense of belonging, a sense of purpose, a sense of hope for change. It\u2019s really nice to have a place where this is recognized.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

WGSS course offerings are diverse, ranging from \u201cGender and Globalization\u201d to \u201cBlack Feminist Politics\u201d to \u201cLGBTQ+ Literature.\u201d The program comprises 14 core faculty members and over 50 affiliated faculty.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Portrait
Sherry Zane, left, interim director of UConn’s Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies program, and Ariana Codr, right, associate director and assistant professor in residence of the WGSS program, pose for a photo in Beach Hall on Feb. 5, 2024. (Sydney Herdle\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Academically, it finds a home amongst other justice-oriented programs that sprang up on university campuses in the late twentieth century, like Africana studies, <\/span>Asian and Asian American <\/span>studies, and Latinx studies. At UConn as elsewhere, these offerings were brought about by student protest and demand.<\/span><\/p>\n

Zane says she is particularly excited to use the funding to expand programming in disability studies. This field is currently gaining academic awareness in much the same way as <\/span>gender, critical race, and ethnic studies<\/span> did in the 1960s and 70s.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are lucky to have two amazing feminist disability scholars in our program \u2014 Laura Mauldin and Brenda Brueggemann \u2014 who are working on creating a disability studies minor,\u201d Zane says. \u201cDisability is a feminist issue, and our students recognize disability as part of the human experience, not the exception to it.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

More big things are in store for WGSS too, Zane says, like the development of an MA \u201cPlus One\u201d program (which would allow undergraduate students to earn a master\u2019s degree by taking an additional year of courses after receiving their BA), a <\/span>possible <\/span>graduate studies partnership with Spelman college, and a WGSS 50<\/span>th<\/span> anniversary celebration this coming March (which, in keeping with the program\u2019s tradition, will feature speaker panels and collaborative discussions).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The no-strings-attached funding from the Mellon Foundation will help the program realize all these goals.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt reaffirms that there is a community of people, both inside academia and outside, who believe in the importance of this work,\u201d says Codr.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Above all, the funding will help the program support more students, as its course offerings and enrollment numbers continue to expand in student-led directions.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Those students \u201care the beating heart, and they just bring so much,\u201d Codr says. \u201cThat\u2019s why we do it.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The award represents a significant investment in UConn humanities research and is the WGSS program\u2019s first major external grant<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":175,"featured_media":210662,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2226,2460,2076,2235,2306,2227],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2413],"class_list":["post-208740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clas","category-faculty","category-research","category-today-homepage","category-uconn-voices","category-uconn-edu-homepage"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-29 19:10:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/175"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208740"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":211713,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208740\/revisions\/211713"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/210662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208740"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=208740"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=208740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}