Students Attend Women Studies Conference

Students attend Women Studies Conference

The Women’s and Gender Studies Department took 16 students and recent graduates to the annual conference of the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) in San Francisco in November 2019.

This marked the first time that Cal Poly students attended the NWSA conference. Student travel was funded by a successful Spur Change crowdfunding campaign in spring 2019. The students were able to attend the conference thanks to the generosity of 102 donors.

NWSA is the premier conference in women's studies, and it was transformative for the students. Professor Jane Lehr, who organized the fundraising campaign also wrote: "Taking a big delegation of students will impact (positively!) the ways in which other programs engage with Cal Poly as a site for producing new knowledge in [women's studies] areas."

In addition to attending, multiple Cal Poly students had their work accepted to present as part of the main conference program. "Our students are recognized as emerging scholar-activists at the leading conference in our field!" said Lehr.