Institute for Research & Education on Women and Gender

Arts

Global Issues

International Women's Film Festival. Annual series of films made by and about women.

Community Service (and Activism)

Women's Action Coalition. The institute is a member of the Women's Action Coalition, a group of more than 150 women's organizations in Western New York. Consultation with and contributions to reports on women by the Erie County Commission on the Status of Women is provided. Currently, IREWG is part of the planning for a Women's Pan American Leadership Conference to be held in 2001, commemorating the 1901 Pan Am Exhibition held in Buffalo. The conference will focus on the political, economic, and health status of women in the Americas.

Curriculum Development

Gender and the Changing Curriculum: Educating With(out) the Difference(s). This interdisciplinary, day-long conference explored new ways that the curriculum could be changed to better include women and gender. The program included integrating gender and science, gender-inclusive syllabi, gender and technology, gender and the media, and roundtable discussions on the impact of gender on one's position as faculty, administrator, or student member of a university community.

Teaching about Women and Gender is a workshop on teaching gender where syllabi are presented.

Course Competition for Developing New Interdisciplinary Courses for Women, 1998-99. The competition awarded grants to cover development costs for new courses. Five new courses resulted: Women and Science, Biology of Women, Mathematics in Context, Labor Market Segmentation, Gender & Ethnicity, and Gender and Technology.

Scholar-in-Residence, March 22-26, 1999. This program reflects the strategy for introducing new, intellectually challenging voices on gender issues to the UB community for a sustained period. With presentations and seminars for students and faculty colleagues, the scholar's visit has an "intellectual multiplier effect." IREWG's first resident scholar/artist was Vera Frankel from Toronto. Her work combines multiple media - video, text, and computers - in stimulating presentations on identity and Diaspora. The week-long visit allowed for lectures, workshops, and "crits" for students in art and media studies.

Feminist Thought and Scholarship

Women at the End of the Twentieth Century. This lecture series featured women scholars addressing issues that women face as the century draws to a close. Topics included poor and working-class women, women who abuse drugs and alcohol, and more.

Annual Celebration of Scholarship on Women and Gender. Showcases multidisciplinary activities, research, course work, and community.

Faculty Lectures and Seminar Series.

Research Awards Competition.

Girls and Adolescents

Urban Girls 2000 Conference to be held April 14-16, 2000. This conference will stimulate new ways of thinking about girls and translate those thoughts into carefully developed action programs, with particular emphasis on local initiatives. Professor Lani Guiner will be the keynote speaker. Sponsored with the School of Graduate Education

Symposium on Female Adolescence, April 26, 1999. Sponsored by IREWG and the Department of History, this symposium addressed such topics as adolescence, sexuality, race, and compulsory sterilization in the South. It also offered historical perspectives on female adolescence.

Science and Technology

Building a University Community of Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Conference planned for 2000, focusing on mentoring and retaining women in the STEM disciplines.

Feminist Thought and Scholarship

IREWG Newsletter. Published twice a year.

IREWG Report on Activities, 1997-1999. Summary of the institute's first two years of operation.