A Quarterly Newsletter

Women's History Month 2006

The 2006 National Women’s History Month theme, “Women: Builders of Communities & Dreams,” honors the spirit of possibility and hope set in motion by generations of women in their creation of communities and their encouragement of dreams. Community comes in many forms, and dreams change, expand, and are sometimes fulfilled. This year’s theme honors women for bringing communities together and restoring hope in the face of impossible odds.

The ETSU campus will celebrate Women’s History Month with an outstanding lineup of special programs and lectures during March 2006. The following outlines the programs slated for this month dedicated to celebrating the accomplishments of women.

“SHE RAVES,” will kick off ETSU’s Women’s History Month program lineup. Held annually, “SHE RAVES” is scheduled for Wednesday, March 1, 2006, at noon. Location is the East Tennessee Room, D.P. Culp University Center. This casual, unrehearsed “rave” event provides participants with an informal setting where they can share comments about family members, divas, writers, and other special women who have been influential in their lives. The Women’s Resource Center and the Women’s Studies Program are co-sponsoring this Women’s History Month program.

On Thursday, March 2, 2006, the Women’s Studies Program and the Women’s Resource Center are sponsoring “Sisters in Spirit: The Iroquois Influence on Early American Feminists,” a public lecture by Sally Roesch Wagner, Ph.D., veteran women’s studies professor. Drawing on her 30-year career as a scholar and lecturer, Wagner presents a spellbinding new way of looking at history, engaging audiences from kindergarten to senior citizens, in venues ranging from college campuses to state legislatures. Wagner currently serves as director of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation. The Foundation is dedicated to educating current and future generations about Gage's work and its power to drive contemporary social change.

Wagner’s lecture addresses how women of the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy inspired the revolutionary vision of early feminists by providing a model of empowered women. At a time when Euro-American women had few rights, Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) women possessed decisive political power, control of their bodies and property, custody of the children they bore, satisfying work, and a society generally free of rape and domestic violence. The thinking of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage became transformed through their involvement with their indigenous neighbors in upstate New York.

Location for “Sisters in Spirit: The Iroquois Influence on Early American Feminists” is the Charles C. Sherrod Library, Room 309, 7:00 p.m.

Judy Gorman in Concert is slated for Thursday, March 23, 2006. Location is the Bud Frank Theatre, Gilbreath Hall, 7:00 p.m. Showcasing the talents of singer and songwriter Judy Gorman, concert goers will hear songs rooted in folk, blues, jazz and gospel music. Gorman’s songs get their wings from her imagination and their roots from folk, blues, jazz and gospel music that she's been surrounded by all her life. According to Ms. Magazine, "Her rich throaty vocals are as affecting as her thoughtful, often political lyrics." Her earliest memories are of hearing the music of Billie Holiday, Woody Guthrie, Paul Robeson, and Leadbelly.

Born and educated in New York City, Gorman earned a B.A. in literature and a master’s degree in art history. Before touring full time as a musician, she taught English in Chinatown, assisted in oral surgery, worked at the Guggenheim Museum and Metropolitan Museum of Art, did construction work, community organizing and produced radio programs for Pacifica Radio's WBAI, 99.5 FM in New York City. Gorman has performed on programs with Ani DiFranco, the Indigo Girls, Moby, Richie Havens, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Pete Seeger, Suzanne Vega, Odetta, James Earl Jones, Laura Nyro, Whoopi Goldberg, Susan Sarandon, and Maya Angelou. Performing in over ten countries and forty-eight of these United States, Gorman has performed at universities, festivals, and peace and justice events.

This Women’s History Month program is sponsored by the Women’s Studies Program and the Women’s Resource Center.

Rounding out Women’s History Month programming will be the annual TAKE BACK THE NIGHT 5K Race/Walk, scheduled for Saturday, March 25, 2006, as well as the TAKE BACK THE NIGHT Rally and March, which is slated for Monday, March 27, 2006. Articles detailing these programs follow on page 3.

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Bernice Johnson Reagon and Maya Angelou to speak at ETSU

For over four decades, Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon’s multi-faceted career has taken her from the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement in her birthplace of Albany, Georgia, to her pioneering work as a scholar, teacher, and artist in the history and evolution of African-American culture. On Thursday, March 16, 2006, Reagon will present a guest lecture. The Reagon lecture serves as the signature event for Campus Compact's Raise Your Voice: A Month of Action. The observance, February 19-March 25, is designed to increase, celebrate, and deepen the student civic engagement efforts on college campuses around the country. Sponsored by SGA B.U.C. Funding, Volunteer ETSU, the Women's Resource Center, and the Honors College, Reagon's presentation is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. in the Martha Street Culp Auditorium, D.P. Culp University Center.

Reagon offers a unique perspective on activism through her "songtalk" presentations in which she intertwines her knowledge of African-American culture and song with her own experiences as an activist, scholar, singer, composer, and African-American woman. With a career stretching more than four decades, Reagon’s activist experiences began with her participation in the Civil Rights movement in her native Albany, Ga. She worked full time for the movement as a song leader and singer with the SNCC Freedom Singers. Completing her academic training as a cultural historian, Reagon has received major recognition for her pioneering work as a scholar, teacher, and artist in the history and evolution of African-American culture including the MacArther Fellowship (1989), the Heinz Award for the Arts and Humanities (2003), the Leeway National Award for Women in the Arts (2000), and the Presidential Medal for contribution to public understanding of the Humanities. Reagon recently retired after thirty years of performing with Sweet Honey in the Rock, the internationally renowned a cappella ensemble she founded in 1973.

For additional information regarding the Reagon lecture contact Joy Fulkerson or Jared Story, Student Organization Resource Center (SORC), at 423-439-4254.

Hailed as one of the great voices of contemporary black literature and as a remarkable Renaissance woman, Dr. Maya Angelou will be the guest speaker for a lecture scheduled on March 21, 2006, 7:30 p.m. Location for the Angelou lecture is Memorial Center, west side; doors will open at 6:30 p.m.

By the time she was in her early twenties Angelou had been a Creole cook, a streetcar conductor, a cocktail waitress, a dancer, a madam, and an unwed mother. The following decades saw her emerge as a successful singer, actress, and playwright, an editor for an English-language magazine in Egypt, a lecturer and civil rights activist, and a popular author of five collections of poetry and five autobiographies. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, a chronicle of her life up to age sixteen (and ending with the birth of her son, Guy) was published in 1970 with great critical and commercial success.

Admission tickets for the Angelou lecture will be available to ETSU students on March 13, 2006. On Thursday, March 16, 2006, tickets will go on sale to the general public, as well as ETSU faculty and staff. The following schedule outlines ticket locations and cost per ticket.

Monday, March 13 through Wednesday, March 15

Tickets are available to ETSU students, only [1 free ticket per student with current ETSU ID, additional tickets may be purchased by ETSU students beginning March 16]

Thursday, March 16 through Monday, March 20

Tickets are available to General Public [$10 each, cash only], ETSU Faculty/Staff [1 ticket may be purchased for $5, additional tickets $10 each] and ETSU students [1 free ticket per student]

Where: D.P. Culp Center – 1st Floor Information Booth
When: 11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.

Day of Event

ALL TICKETS ($15 each, cash only)

Where: Memorial Center [Mini-Dome], west side
When: Noon until the event start time

Sponsors of the Angelou lecture are the Diversity Events Committee, SGA BUC Fund, Black Affairs Association, Department of English, Residence Hall Association, Office of Student Affairs, Office of Equity and Diversity, Women’s Studies Program, and Women’s Resource Center. For additional information, contact the Office of Student Affairs at 423-439-4210.

“Sexual Assault 101”

On Tuesday, April 11, 2006, “Sexual Assault 101,” will be presented by Leah Arthur, M.A., community educator with the Sexual Assault Outreach Program in Johnson City. Arthur will discuss the legal definitions related to behavior surrounding sexual assault actions and the effects these actions take on women and society.

Location for the Arthur Women’s Health Series Lunch Break Seminar is Meeting Room 3, D.P. Culp University Center, noon.

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