Judith Gold Stitzel Endowment
Judith Gold Stitzel Endowment for Excellence in Women’s Studies Teaching and Learning
The Judith Gold Stitzel Endowment for Excellence in Women’s Studies Teaching and Learning supports faculty who integrate women’s studies scholarship into the fabric of teaching and learning at West Virginia University.
Background: The endowment was established to ensure a continuing and vital presence for women’s studies as an academic discipline at WVU. Therefore, the endowment supports women’s studies teaching and learning which is sensitive to gender and which places women’s concerns, ideas, perspectives, and interests as much at the center of the scholarly and teaching enterprise as men’s have been.
The intent of the endowment is educative and transformative. The goals are:
- To make permanently available to the University community and through that community to West Virginia citizens, the new and expanding knowledge which women’s studies scholarship creates
- To institutionalize women’s studies knowledge into the fabric of teaching at WVU. Therefore, endowment resources will be used to recognize, support, and strengthen faculty members in their work as educators, particularly those on the Morgantown campus of WVU, but also applicants and those invited or recruited to WVU from other institutions. In all cases, teaching and learning activities supported by this endowment must be designed to increase women’s studies knowledge at WVU.
Eligible Activities: Examples include, but are not limited to, designing new courses and reconceptualizing existing courses and course modules; instruction may be in traditional classroom settings or via electronic media. Project proposals which do not directly affect student learning, e.g., faculty curriculum workshops, are eligible when they support the goals of the endowment. One proposal will be funded for a maximum amount of $3,000.
2011 Award Winner
Dunia Catalina Méndez Vallejo is a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Department of Foreign Languages at WVU where she teaches courses in linguistics and Spanish. She earned a PhD in Linguistics and Hispanic Linguistics from Indiana University where she specialized in syntax in Colombian Spanish. Catalina’s project for the Stitzel Endowment is to develop a new course on gender and language to help students understand gender issues by observing how people speak and write. One of the references for her application noted that Catalina’s cross-cultural and cross-linguistics experience enhances her interactions with people from many different backgrounds. The field of sociolinguistics is an important contribution to the women’s studies and linguistics programs at WVU.
Prior Projects
The 2010 Recipient, Shelley Cavalieri is a visiting assistant professor in the WVU College of Law. She earned a J. D. from the University of California, Berkeley and a B.A. from the University of Virginia. She has conducted extensive international research on land reform in Guatemala and human trafficking in Thailand and Italy. These interests are also evident in her work with trafficking victims, asylum seekers, and religious refugees around the country. Her project for the Stitzel Endowment is to incorporate a gender perspective to the Immigration Law Clinic at the WVU College of Law which she is currently co-directing. The clinic provides legal services to immigrant communities in West Virginia. This clinic will also expose student attorneys in the program to gender issues in their work on domestic violence among immigrant women. Shelley will coordinate these activities with community organizations and women’s and international programs around the university.
Diana Knott Martinelli, the recipient of the 2009 Stitzel Award, will be developing an elective course for undergraduates that will look at how women have used communication campaigns to propel social causes. The class will combine elements of history, women’s studies, and communication principles within a single course. “Much good has been done by women through strategic communication campaigns and tactics,” said Martinelli. “I’d like to not only inform students of these strong, courageous, intelligent, and skilled women but also perhaps inspire them to use these role models and their own knowledge and skills to likewise benefit society.” Martinelli is the Widmeyer Communications Professor in Public Relations in the Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism at West Virginia University. She received both her B.S.J. and her M.S.J. from WVU and her Ph.D. from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She joined the faculty at WVU in 2005 and teaches courses in public relations and graduate research.
Karen Weiss, an assistant professor in the Division of Sociology and Anthropology was the 2008 Stitzel Endowment Teacher. She has a BA in liberal studies from New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Studies, a MA in women’s studies from San Francisco Sate University, and a MA and PhD in sociology from Stony Brook University, State University of New York. She joined the faculty at WVU in 2006 and teaches courses in criminology, deviant behavior, victimology, and prisons and incarcerations. Dr. Weiss will be using the endowment funds to fund her salary to develop a new course entitled Sexuality and Society for the Division of Sociology and Anthropology, to purchase books that may be used as readings for the course, and to develop a list of potential guest speakers for the course. This course will look at sexuality “from a sociological perspective, looking closely at how sexuality is defined, organized and experienced within the context of society.” According to Dr. Weiss, “a sociological analysis of sexuality will include an examination of how sexual practices, norms and rituals are shaped by cultural, historical and social forces.” She also wants to look at “ways in which sexuality impacts gender, race, class, and interpersonal relationships.”
Dr. Christina S. Wilson, assistant professor in the WVU School of Medicine’s Department of Behavioral Medicine and Psychiatry, was the 2007 Stitzel Endowment Teacher. Dr. Wilson developed and taught a revised course in cultural diversity for psychiatry students, psychology interns, and psychology graduate students. This included identifying women in north central West Virginia willing to meet in small group discussions about their experience seeking and obtaining mental health care in West Virginia. In particular, she wants to identify women “from a variety of diverse backgrounds, including African American, Asian American, Hispanic/Latino, senior citizens, gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered, low literacy/lower formal education and/or Muslim/Hindu religions.” She would also like to identify women volunteers who would be willing to discuss their experiences with her classes. Then, she will teach seminars on cultural diversity at the WVU School of Medicine and elsewhere at WVU, based on the materials she develops through the grant. In the end, she will be able to share her findings to the rest of the university community and others interested through an instructional/scholarly essay. Dr. Wilson received her PhD from Wayne State University and did special training at the University of Michigan Hospitals. Her special interests are in neuropsychological assessment, cognitive rehabilitation, dementia evaluation, and brain injury patient counseling.
Katherine Bankole, associate professor of history, was the 2006 Stitzel Endowment Teacher. With this grant, Bankole designed a research project on “The Academic Question in Women’s Studies: An Examination of the Instructional Themes in Gender and Slavery From Ancient Greece, Pre-Colonial Africa, and the Antebellum American South.” This project will allow Bankole to revise and teach a course in African American women’s history (Summer 2007), highlighting the multicultural experience of women in slavery. She also developed two instructional manuscripts, including “Unforgotten Sister: Nineteenth Century Memoirs of African American Women.” Bankole taught two new courses at WVU in 2006 in the Department of History: African American Cultural and Intellectual History and the History of Black Nationalism in the United States.
Bei Wu, assistant professor in the Department of Community Medicine and Center on Aging, was the 2005 Stitzel Endowment Teacher. She used the Stitzel Endowment funds to develop a new undergraduate/graduate course entitled “Aging, Women, and Multicultural Perspectives,” which replaces two other courses: The Aging Woman and Culture, Diversity & Aging. The new course will incorporate three perspectives—feminist, gerontological, and multicultural—to examine the impact of gender, race/ethnicity, and culture on aging. Particular attention will be directed towards understanding the importance of cultural characteristics, health care issues, historical experience, demographic characteristics, life course perspectives, institutional barriers, and socioeconomic inequality in shaping women’s diverse later life experiences. The class will also discuss policy and practical implications to improve the overall well-being of older women.
Carroll Wetzel Wilkinson, head of Access Services Department, WVU Downtown Campus Library, was the 2003 Stitzel Endowment Teacher. She used her funds for travel and purchase of books to support the development of a new course called “Women’s Studies Research in the Information Age.” This course was offered for the first time in the summer of 2004. The goal of the course is to introduce students to the global electronic and print information sources now available to support inquires about women; to introduce students to the principles of information literacy articulated and promoted by the Association of College and Research Libraries; to develop student’s information literacy skills through a series of structured assignments designed collaboratively by Carroll and selected women’s studies faculty members; to strengthen and expand the curriculum of the Center for Women’s Studies; and to explore on behalf of WVU Libraries and the WVU Center for Women’s Studies whether a distance education course on this topic is feasible for the future at WVU, in addition to the traditional course.
Carroll commented that “Drs. Judith and Robert Stitzel created the Stitzel Endowment for Excellence in Teaching and Research in Women’s Studies, and when I was named this year’s recipient, it meant that generous funds were available to me to support travel to libraries and purchase of research materials to support my course development project. This immeasurably enriched what I was able to do during my six month leave and I’ll be grateful to them for the rest of my life.”
Carol Ann Markstrom of the Davis College of Agriculture, Forestry, Family and Consumer Sciences was the 2002 Stitzel Endowment Teacher. Carol commented that “The Stitzel Endowment is allowing me to engage in important travel this year to attend the Apache puberty ceremony for girls called the Sunrise Dance. Observation of the ceremony and interviews of the initiates has yielded knowledge that is proving to be critical in my research on coming-of-age ceremonies of American Indian girls. I have been able to incorporate the data and slides from the ceremonies in several of my classes in Child Development and Family Studies and in Native American Studies. I am very grateful for the support from the Endowment and the learning opportunity it has provided!”
Ann Oberhauser of the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Geology and Geography was the 2001 Stitzel Endowment Teacher and used her funds to develop the service-learning component of her Geography of Gender course. Ann commented that “The Judith Stitzel endowment has given me the incentive to expand the service learning component of my gender class. The students appreciate the opportunity to get out in the community and interact with organizations that are helping people.”
Julie Hicks Patrick of the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Psychology was the 2000 Stitzel Endowment Teacher, and used her funding to conduct “a meta-analysis of gender differences in cognitive performance, as indicated by neuropsychological tests (i.e., MRIs).” According to Julie, “Receiving the Stitzel Endowment funds provided me with an opportunity to critically evaluate what I do as an instructor, as well as to critically evaluate what I don’t do. For many of the students in my courses, their experiences here at WVU may be the first, or last, opportunity to really think about how untested beliefs and stereotypes influence their own behaviors. As instructors, we have ethical obligations to prepare a scientifically literate populate. Receiving the Stitzel Endowment funds allowed me to really think about, and repackage, the kind of critical thinking skills that I want my students to master.”
Christine Martin and Maryanne Reed of the Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism were the 1999 (first) Stitzel Endowment Teachers. They used their funds to help support a panel of women journalists who covered the Vietnam war and changed journalism history. According to Chris, “The Stitzel grant gave Maryanne and me the opportunity to share a unique and extraordinary piece of women’s history with the university, the region, and the nation. But it did more than that. It gave seven extraordinary women a voice, a forum, and a time in history.” As a result of that panel, the journalists published their experiences in War Torn: Stories of War from the Women Reporters Who Covered Vietnam (2002).
Selection Criteria
Any faculty member at WVU, regardless of rank, status, or gender, may submit a proposal. Proposals from teams are eligible. When the faculty committee judges proposals to be equally strong, preference will be given to a faculty member in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences in which the Center for Women’s Studies resides. The successful applicant shall be designated as a Stitzel Endowment Teacher and shall be expected to make a public presentation about the work funded by the endowment. The successful applicant shall also be required to submit a final report on the use of endowment funds to the Center for Women’s Studies.
Eligible Expenses
Resources may be used to increase women’s studies teaching and learning by, for example, providing salary supplements, overload payments, summer salaries, reassignment expenses, and/or course development expenses, such as travel and supplies. Recipients must follow WVU Foundation fiscal policies.
Application Procedure
Interested individuals must complete the application form. The deadline for receipt of the application in the Center for Women’s Studies for 2011 will be announced in January. A committee of Women’s Studies Faculty Associates will determine the proposal to be funded.
Further Information
If you have questions about eligibility or need assistance with application procedures, please contact:
Dr. Ann Oberhauser, Director,
WVU Center for Women’s Studies
218 Eiesland Hall, PO BOX 6450
Morgantown, WV 26506-6450
Phone: (304) 293-2339, ext. 1155
Fax: (304) 293-3041
Email: Ann.oberhauser@mail.wvu.edu