Affirmative Action

CROW's brand of action-oriented, community-based research strengthens the public's understanding of women's experiences in Memphis and contributes to local, regional and national policy discussions.

Women's Academic Network
The Women's Academic Network provides women on our campus with an informal opportunity to meet new colleagues, socialize, and discuss topics of interest and relevance to women in academia.  

In addition to ongoing research, the Center:

* is heading a collaborative of over 50 Memphis organizations dedicated to reducing the numbers of teen pregnancy in our community.

* is working with other University of Memphis faculty, staff and students to create a Safe Zone for GLBTQ students on our campus.

Current Research Agenda for Spring 2010:

Extensive back list of working papers and bibliographies on Southern women and women of color. Contact CROW for list and order information.

Examples of recent publications include:

* Sagrestano, Lynda. 2009. Nowhere to hide: A Look At the Pervasive  Atmosphere of Sexual Harassment in Memphis Area Middle & High Schools.  

* CROW. 2008. Center for Research on Women: 2007-2008 Annual Report.

* Across Races & Nations: Building New Communities in the U.S. South, Published September 2006 by The Center for Research on Women, University of Memphis (TN); the Highlander Research and Education Center (TN); and the Southern Regional Council (GA). This 370-page report published in English and Spanish provides information to activists, philanthropists and others who seek to address immigration and the needs of immigrants as part of larger social justice agendas in the South. Includes project and participant overviews, case studies, glossaries of U.S. immigration terms and policies, economic fact sheets, maps, "Know Your Rights" workshop guides for immigrants, and other materials for popular education.

* What Is a Living Wage in Memphis?, David H. Ciscel, working paper (2002).

* Advocates for Girls: Promoting Success in Early Adolescence, Barbara Ellen Smith and Claire Porter (1998).

* Profiles: A Report on the Women and Girls of Greater Memphis, Martha Schmidt (1997).

Opportunities:

RESEARCH

Center researchers are currently analyzing the results of the Faculty Work-Life Study, a joint project of the Center for the Education of Women and the UM Center for Research on Learning and Teaching. The survey of UM faculty included questions about climate, workload, sources of satisfaction and stress, and incorporate AAUDI questions for comparison to similar institutions.  This project also provides comparison to the 1998 FWLS.

Contingent Faculty in a Tenure Track World - CEW researchers held focus groups with full- and part-time non-tenure track (NTT) faculty at twelve research universities across the country. In total, we conducted 24 ninety-minute focus groups with a total of 343 full- and part-time NTT faculty. A report of the project is available  and a video based on the project explores the responses of focus group members. The project was funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

The National Clearinghouse on Academic Worklife  (www.academicworklife.org) combines into a single website information resources and community discussions to support those who study or participate in academic work.  Up to date articles and policy examples are available on topics ranging from family-friendly benefits, tenure attainment, and faculty satisfaction to policy development, productivity, and demographics.  An email newsletter is also available free to subscribers. This clearinghouse was developed  through a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

The Dual Career Ladder Project, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, resulted in several publications based on the findings of our institutional survey of U.S. institutions of higher education.  highlighting the numbers, working conditions and perceived contributions of non tenure track faculty.  These are available on the CEW website.

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

CEW’s Advanced Leadership Program offers middle management University of Michigan staff, recommended by their supervisors, an eight-month skill development workshop series and accompanying change management project.  This program has been offered annually for nearly 10 years. 

Focus on Leadership, addresses the need for leadership development and training for staff not yet in key middle-management positions or not yet ready for the more extensive Advanced Leadership Program.  Offered to approximately 30 individuals annually, this program offers participants an introduction to leadership concepts while it assists participants in developing an identity as a potential leader.

Emerging Leaders Iniative  CEW is currently developing an innovative nine-month program for emerging leaders (those with less than 6 years in their career fields) over the course of two years. The program will focus on women from a specific Michigan urban region, combining those from the private and the non-profit sectors.  The program combines in-person sessions, career coaching by senior leaders, and ongoing support and learning using web 2.0 tools including social media and online learning. 

PROGRAMS

CEW offers about 50 programs each term, covering topics such as careers, career change and job searching, work-life balance, leadership development, and focused programs for graduate students and post-docs.  In addition, CEW brings special events and speakers to the campus and community. 

In addition, CEW leads three support networks for University of Michigan women: Women of Color in the Academy Project and Junior Women Faculty Network for women faculty and the Women of Color Task Force for women staff.  These networks offer support, mentoring, and learning opportunities for participants.  The Task Force delivers a campus-wide career conference annually, with about 550 participants. 

CEW provides free counseling to students, faculty and staff of the University as well as to women and men in the community.  Each year over 1,000 adults are seen by CEW’s professional counselors.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS FROM CEW

Developing a Transparent Tenure Process (Resources for Deans and Chairs)

Enabling Junior Faculty Success (Resources for Deans and Chairs)

The Gender Impact of the Proposed Michigan Civil Rights Initiative. Susan Kaufmann

Post-Apartheid South Africa: Creating Critically Leaderful Schools that Make a Difference
Juliet Perumal, University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa) and CEW Visting Scholar, 2007.

How American Men's Participation in Housework and Child-care Affects Wives' Careers. 
Renge Jibu, CEW Visiting Scholar

Making the Best of Both Worlds: Findings from a National Institution-Level Survey on Non-Tenure Track Faculty

Michigan Women and the High-Tech Knowledge Economy. Susan Kaufmann

Principles for Best Practices: A Collection of Suggested Procedures for Improving Climate for Women Faculty Members.  Jean Waltman and Carol Hollenshead

MORE PUBLICATIONS

Visiting Scholar Program

The Visiting Scholar Program is an opportunity for scholars to pursue research projects relevant to women using the vast resources available through the Center for the Education of Women (CEW) and the University of Michigan. Scholars must hold a Ph.D. or equivalent degree. A scholar's stay at the Center can range from one to twelve months, as appropriate to the scholar's research needs. Visiting Scholars prepare a working paper based upon their research, which is published as part of the Center's series of occasional papers.

Robin Wright Graduate Fellowship

The Center for the Education of Women announces the Robin Wright Graduate Fellowship with a grant of up to $3,200. The fund will support research by a graduate student from the Islamic World or Africa matriculating in the Rackham Graduate School.

Child Care

As part of its on-going commitment to low-income families, Legal Momentum has long focused on the need for child care. Legal Momentum is broaening its work into a campaign to provide a comprehensive system of quality, affordable child care for every family in America.

Poverty and Welfare Reform

Legal Momentum supports the State Advocacy Project, an initiative that promotes child care, reproductive rights, employment rights, and ending domestic violence for low-income women.

Recognizing that 90% of adult TANF recipients are female, Legal Momentum views welfare as a women's issue. Currently, our work has focused on ensuring that a fair and sensible welfare policy that addresses the barriers to women's economic security will be implemented upon Congressional reauthorization.

Employment

Legal Momentum supports placing women in non-traditional jobs, such as firefighting and law enforcement, as well as construction trades and technology fields. Following the World Trade Center disaster of 9/11/2001, Legal Momentum launched Women Rebuild NY/Women Rebuild America, a program designed to further training and job opportunities in these areas.

Immigration

Legal Momentum advocates on behalf of battered immigrant women and victims of trafficking. The organization's Immigrant Women Program, based in the Washington, DC office, has extensive contact with grass-roots organizations and works with federal legislators to ensure the rights and protections of immigrant survivors of violence and sexual abuse. We also advocate for immigrant women to receive economic benefits to which they are lawfully entitled.

Violence against Women

Legal Momentum crafted the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA) and currently leads the fight for passage of the Victims Economic Security and Safety Act (VESSA).

Under our Economic Rights for Survivors of Abuse (ERSA) program, we are litigating cases on behalf of women whose careers and well-being are affected by domestic and sexual violence.

Law/Legal Issues

Legal Momentum's Project on Federalism monitors and seeks to educate the public about the Supreme Court's recent decisions limiting the federal government's ability to legislate such vital areas of national policy as violence in the home, guns in schools, protection of our environment, and many other civil and women's rights issues.

The National Judicial Education Program to Promote Equality for Women and Men in the Courts (NJEP), develops trainings, publications, and video curricula to educate judges and prosecutors on gender issues.

Child Care

Know Your Rights: Parents Receiving Public Assistance in New York City

Nowhere to Turn: New York City's Failure to Inform Parents on Public Assistance About Their Child Care Rights

Still Nowhere to Turn: New York City's Continuing Failure to Inform Parents on Public Assistance About Their Child Care Rights

Poverty and Welfare Reform

Legal Momentum. 2009. Ensuring the Economic and Personal Security of Women and Girls. 

www.legalmomentum.org/assets/pdfs/2009-legal-momentum-annual.pdf

Bonus for Building Real Opportunities for Poor Families: State Action Packet

Brutal Need: Lawyers and the Welfare Rights Movement, 1960-1973, Martha Davis (1993). Describes the emergence of welfare rights litigation in the 1960s and highlights the strategies of important constitutional cases.

Dangerous Indifference: New York City's Failure to Implement the Family Violence Option

Welfare Reform Information Packet (1998). Includes background on child exclusion (family cap) and illegitimacy ratio.

What Congress Didn't Tell You: This 50-state report begins to track state responses to welfare reform in the area of reproductive choice and specficially focuses on the illegitimacy bonus, the family cap, and the abstinence-only sex education funding.

Working First But Working Poor: The Need for Education & Training in Wefare Reform (Executive Summary and Full Report Available): A Study by Legal Momentum and the Institute for Women's Policy Research on how women welfare recipients are denied access to job training for good-paying jobs in fields traditionally populated by men.

Employment

Household Workers' Rights Under Federal Law Fact Sheet

Know Your rights: A Woman's Guide to Sexual Harassment and Workfare

Manual for Survival for Women in Nontraditional Employment

Nontraditional Employment for Low-Income Women: A Guide for Advocates

The Women of Ground Zero: A Documentary: A 12-minute film documenting the efforts of six women form various backgrounds who helped at the disaster site on and after 9/11.

Violence Against Women & ERSA:

Not Enough: What TANF Offers Family Violence Victims. 2010. 

The survey on which this report is based is a unique, comprehensive effort to understand when TANF successfully assists victims of family violence, and when the program falls short, leaving victims to fend for themselves. 

Action Packet: State Laws Can Help Domestic Violence Victims At Work

The Impact of Violence in the Lives of Working Women: Creating Solutions, Creating Change: Designed to aid employers, managers, supervisors, and human resource professionals, this guide explains how violence against women affects the workplace and how businesses can develop solutions that assist women employees who have suffered.

Protecting Women's Welfare in the Face of Violence: Critiques welfare reform proposals in light of data on the relationship between violence against women and poverty.

Report From the Front Lines: The Impact of Violence on Poor Women: This qualitative study demonstrates that domestic violence and poverty interact to keep women on public assistance. Also included is a copy of the Family Violence Amendment.

State-by-State Laws on Discrimination Against Domestic Violence Victims

State-by-State Laws on Domestic Violence Workplace Policies

State-by-State Laws on Employment Leave for Domestic Violence Victims

State-by-State Laws on Unemployment Insurance

Employment Rights for Survivors of Abuse (ERSA) General Brochure

Domestic Violence and Unemployment Insurance: A Manual for Clients and Advocates

Eligibility for Unemployment Benefits (also available in French)

Employment Rights of Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Domestic Violence Survivors

Job Protections & Accommodations for Disabilities Caused by Domestic Violence

Safety Planning in the Workplace: Protecting Yourself and Your Job (also available in Chinese, French, Hindu, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese)

Survivors' Right to Take Time from Work to Participae in Criminal Proceedings (also available in French)

Taking Leave from Work for a Family Member's Serious Condition

Taking Leave from Work for Your Own Serious Condition

Welfare-to-Work Programs

Welfare-to-Work Programs in New York

Workplace Discrimination Against Abused Women (also available in French)

Your Legal Rights When an Abuser Injures You at Work

Law/Legal Issues and NJEP:

National Judicial Education Program (NJEP)Publications List

Credibility in the Courts: Why is There a Gender Gap?

Implementation Resources Directory, a publication of the Gender Fairness Strategies Project: Provides an annotated list of actions taken and materials available to address gender bias in state courts that can be replicated or adapted in other jurisdictions.

Is the Law Male? Let Me Count the Ways: Illustrates the concept of the law as male by analogizing it to the medical community's treatment of the male body as the norm.

Overwhelming Evidence: Reports on Gender Bias in the Courts

There's No Accounting For Judges: Recounts recent cases in which judges imposed minimal sentences on wife beaters and murderers, the intense response of the communities in which these cases occurred, and the ways in which judicial selection, election, education, evaluation, and discipline can be used to prevent recurrence of this type of gender bias.

Women of Color in the Courts

NJEP curricula materials for judges and prosecutors also available.

Education

An Annotated Summary of the Regulations for Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (1997). A summary and an analysis of Title IX regulations, including housing and facilities, counseling, scholarships, and athletics.

Public Education Programs for African-American Males: A Women's Educational Perspective, Walteen Grady Truely and Martha F. Davis (1995). Reviews educational research data and theories relevant to recent public school programs targeting African-American males and analyzes the programs from a gender equity perspective.

Reproductive Rights

Drawing the Line: A Handbook for Creating Residential Picketing and Buffer Zone Laws in Your Community: Explores the legal basics of how to enact and implement residential picketing and buffer zone ordinances to protect clinics and their staff from anti-choice violence and harassment. It covers legal standards, perovides an overview of recent court decisions, and offers guidelines for drafting municipal ordinances.

Stop the Terrorism: Understanding Your Rights Under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE): Explains how you can use FACE in your community to prevent, stop, and redress anti-abortion tactics including clinic blockades and invasions, and acts of violence, intimidation, and property damage directed at those seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services.

Legal Resource Kits:

Collections of materials providing general legal information are available on the following topics:

Divorce

Domestic Violence and Child Custody

Employment Sexual Harassment & Discrimination

Filing a Judicial Complaint in State Courts

How to Find a Lawyer (also available in Spanish)

Incest and Child Abuse

Sexual Harassment in Housing

Sexual Harassment in the Schools

Stalking

Violence Against Women

NOW LDEF also distributes the following publications of the National Center on Women and Family Law, which is now closed:

Analysis and Policy Implications of the New Domestic Violence Police Studies (1994).

Battered Women - Procedure for Change of Name and Social Security Number (1995).

Batterer's Pathology: Questions and Implications (1993).

Defending a Battered Woman Accused of Parental Abduction (1992).

The Effect of Woman Abuse on Children, 2nd. ed. (1994).

Guide to Interstate Custody: A Manual for Domestic Violence Advocates, 2nd. ed. (1995).

Improving the Health Care Response to Domestic Violence Through Protocols and Policies (1994).

Mandatory Arrest Laws (1994).

Mandatory Arrest: Problems and Possibilities (1994).

Mediation - A Guide for Advocates and Attorneys Representing Battered Women (1990).

Mediation and You (1991).

Mediator's Guide to Domestic Abuse (1989).

Mediation of Domestic Violence Cases (1994).

Medical Domestic Violence Protocols and Standards (1994).

Mutual Orders of Protection (1994).

National Handbook on Teen Dating Violence and the Law. For teens and college-age students.

Non-Disclosure Laws: Protection for Domestic Violence Victims (1994).

State Domestic Violence Laws Regarding Firearms (1993).

State Laws Exempting Battered Women from Mediation (1992).

Status of Marital Rape Exemption Statutes in the United States (1996).

Suing the Police After DeShaney (1995).

Voter Address Confidentiality for Domestic Violence Victims (1995).

Woman Battering: A Major Cause of Homelessness (1991).

Back issues of The Women's Advocate newsletter also available.