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The Women's and Gender Studies Program is an interdisciplinary forum for the study of women's past and present position in society. The concept of gender relations is considered a primary factor in our understanding of women's roles in various institutions and societies. The Program analyzes the similarities and differences among women as a result of such factors as race, class, religion, and sexuality.
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Information about Rena Finder:
Born in Kracow, Poland in 1929, Rena Finder’s entire life changed with the German invasion of Poland in September 1939. Jews were forced to move into the ghetto, which was isolated from the rest of Kracow. From Rena’s perspective, the most hopeful ray of light was Emalia, an enamel kitchenware and ammunition factory owned by the German Christian industrialist Oskar Schindler. Unlike other industrialists, Schindler did everything in his power to provide his Jews with sufficient food and accommodations.
In 1944 Schindler was forced to dismantle Emalia. The women were initially sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Rena was 13 years old. Schindler was able to relocate his factory to Brunnlitz, Czechoslovakia and negotiated with the SS to send his former workers to the Brunnlitz plant. After the Russians liberated Brunnlitz in May 1945, Rena and her mother joined the thousands of other survivors in displaced persons camps located in Germany and Austria. For three long years, they waited for a visa to come to the United States to be with a family friend who had settled in Peabody, Massachusetts before the war. In the fall of 1948 Rena moved to the United States with her husband Mark, whom she had married in 1946. Click -
Rena Finder for more info about her!
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The application for the 2016 Point Foundation Scholarship is NOW OPEN
Point Foundation (Point) is the nation’s largest scholarship-granting organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) students of merit. Point promotes change through scholarship funding, mentorship, leadership development, and community service training.
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Arielle & Jessica, who are both English and Communications double majors, share their experience creating a one-page guide for students—
the result of an activism project—
that details the resources available to students for reporting and responding to sexual assault…
1.
Tell us a little about your work around sexual assault on campus.
It actually started as our Final Activism Project for our Intro To Feminisms class last spring taught by Juli Grigsby. We remember going to a panel during C.A.R.E week, which was about resources available to students for responding to incidents of sexual assault. We both thought that BC does a really good job with prevention methods and bystander education, but we felt students also need to be equipped to know how to respond to cases of sexual assault. So, we created a one-page guide for students that detailed resources for incident response and reporting. One of our end goals was just to increase reporting for cases of sexual assault. One of the first things we did was interview our RA just to kind of get a feel of what should be included on the guide . We also met with Boston College’s Title IX Coordinator, Katie O’Dair, the Director and Assistant Director of the Women’s Center, Katie Dalton and Rachel DiBella, and Dean Rich DeCapua.
The Office Student Affairs had already made a one page guide for faculty and staff detailing resources for reporting, but there was nothing yet for students. Our guide is like a collection of information, which we got from the BC website, and from our talks with administrators. We wanted the student guide to be a very simple one pager, one that is accessible to the students and visible everywhere on campus, in dining halls, residence halls, and bathrooms among many other places. We collaborated with these administrators on the language and design, and we were able to come up with finalized version of the one page guide by the summer. The guide was later incorporated into Orientation Leader (OL) training, and distributed to the entire incoming freshman class at orientation sessions. It was also incorporated into Residential Assistant (RA) training.
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2.
What inspired you to start this project at BC?
We both really care about sexual assault and it is a topic that many students are starting to talk about. This guide is not just for survivors of sexual assault, it is for bystanders and for everyone….so even if an incident didn’t happen to you, it could happen to a roommate, a friend, someone in your hall—everyone on campus should be prepared in terms of how to respond to sexual assault. After taking Women and the Body with Prof. Sharlene Hesse-Biber and Intro to Feminisms we realized that this type of guide and these resources needed to be known and available to every student.
3.
What are your next steps in this project?
We are trying to do a collaborative event in the near future in partnership with
The Heights, the Women’s Center and the Office of Student Affairs, where hand out the guide to students. We are also thinking about having a Speaker Series in the coming years…we also want to continue our relationship with these administrators whom we have worked with to build this guide. we would like to interview students and know what tangible impact the guide is making on campus. Also, moving forward, we want this to be a sustainable effort after we graduate.
Be on the lookout for coming events from The Heights, the Women’s Center, and the Office of Student Affairs. If you would like to contact Jessica Turkmany or Arielle Cedeño with questions or to hear more about their project, you can email them at [email protected] or [email protected]
Check out their one-page guide below-
it has details of resources available to students for reporting and responding to sexual assault…
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Women's and Gender Studies | Boston College | 617-552-4198 | [email protected] | www.bc.edu/wgs
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