Chapel Hill, N.C. (September 22, 2014) – The Carolina Women’s Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is proud to announce its Faculty Scholars for the 2014–2015 academic year. Dr. Joanne Hershfield and Susan Harbage Page from Women’s and Gender Studies department and Dr. Mary H. Palmer from the School of Nursing will use their funding to undertake projects that reflect the mission of the Center.
During Fall 2014, Joanne Hershfield will complete “Planting the First Seed: Making a Home for Formerly Incarcerated Women,” a documentary film about Benevolence Farm in Alamance county, North Carolina. A newly established work and residential program for women leaving prison, Benevolence Farm will “provide an opportunity for women leaving prison to live and work on a farm where they grow food, nourish self, and foster community” and “to create a more equitable, just, and nurturing world for women and communities they transform.” Some of the funds from this award will be used to make “Planting the First Seed” available to people still in prison and to educational institutions in order to inspire conversations about what life after prison is and could be. Hershfield is a professor and chair of the Women’s and Gender Studies department.
Susan Harbage Page’s project combines scholarship with creating an “Anti-Archive” of the objects—lipstick, a single sock, scraps of paper—that undocumented migrants leave in their wake as they cross the Mexico-U.S. border. “Testify[ing] to a life that has moved on, reminding the viewer of what else may have been left behind,” these objects reveal the everyday and gendered lives of migrants. The project will culminate in “Objects from the Borderland,” a limited edition book that combines Harbage Page’s photographs with essays about the border’s political and cultural context. Funds from this award will contribute towards cataloguing and production costs. Harbage Page is an assistant professor in the Women’s and Gender Studies department.
Taking advantage of the medical field’s gradual recognition of the impact of sex difference on health-related behaviors and outcomes, Mary Happel Palmer’s project, “Enhancing Women’s Lives Through Bladder Health,” studies the long term consequences of women’s gendered social and cultural toileting behaviors (for example, “hovering” over a public toilet because of acculturated fears about dirt and disease). In addition to developing a “conceptual model” for understanding the behavioral and cultural influences on women’s bladder health, Palmer and her collaborator will revise a web-based questionnaire to better capture the behaviors of women from different age, ethnic and racial groups. Deeply collaborative, Palmer’s project also includes “providing a research training opportunity for a next generation scholar in women’s health.” Palmer is the Helen W. & Thomas L. Umphlet Distinguished Professor in Aging at the School of Nursing.
Previous Carolina Women’s Center Faculty Scholars include Dr. Nadia Yaqub (Department of Asian Studies), Dr. Emily Burrill (Department of Women’s and Gender Studies), Dr. Minrose Gwin (Department of English and Comparative Literature), Dr. Miriam Labbok (School of Public Health), Dr. Sahar Amer (Department of Asian Studies), Dr. Mimi Chapman (School of Social Work), Dr. Rebecca Macy (School of Social Work), Dr. Pika Ghosh (Department of Art), Dr. Jeanne Moskal (Department of English and Comparative Literature), Dr. Kia Caldwell (Department of African and Afro-American Studies), Dr. Ming Lin (Department of Computer Science), Professor Francesca Talenti (Department of Communication Studies), Dr. Kimberly Brownley (Department of Psychiatry), and Dr. Maxine Eichner (School of Law). Senior Faculty Scholar Diane Kjervik (School of Nursing) held the first CWC faculty scholar position.
The Faculty Scholars program is funded through the Office of the Provost. This year, the Faculty Scholars Selection Committee was comprised of Emily Burrill (Women’s and Gender Studies), Jan Bardsley (Asian Studies), and Christi Hurt (Carolina Women’s Center).
The Carolina Women’s Center pursues gender equity at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Through education, advocacy, and interdisciplinary research, the CWC builds bridges and enhances the intellectual life and public engagement mission of the university. To learn more about the Center and its mission, please visit the website (www.womenscenter.unc.edu). Applications for funding for 2015-2016 are also now available (https://womenscenter.unc.edu/programs/faculty-scholars-program/) and are due Monday, February 2, 2015.