User:Zoerobinson3/sandbox

Article Evaluation
I used the Seneca Falls Convention Wikipedia page as an example article to evaluate. All of the information is related to the topic and I don't believe there is any additional information that would distract the reader. While discussing the convention's importance, an author does mention Judith Wellman's opinion that the convention was the most important event to steer the women's movement into the future. There is no following information with any other individual's opinions on whether this was the most important event, which if added may add more credibility to the article due to reviewing various standpoints. Onward, every citation link I tried to access brought me to a website regarding the Seneca Falls Convention. All three of the websites are government websites, two of which were the National Park website and the third was a dated newspaper article. The first two were reports of the convention that were not biased. Due to the fact the third citation link opened a newspaper, it is less certain that the information isn't biased. Lastly, I thought it was interesting that the article authors initially introduced Female Quakers creating the event following with that Elizabeth Cady Stanton was also a contributor. Whomever added that statement may think more along the lines of how Hewitt addresses this moment in the women's rights movement as a moment that should be reviewed from greater perspective reviewing the multitude of parties involved. This article has been determined a "good" article on the Talk Page. It is of relation to the following WikiProjects: Feminism, Human Rights, Christianity/ Quakers, New York (state) and Women's History. Additionally, there are discussions of plagiarism, content correctness, copyright problems and image altering on the Talk Page.

Possible Articles to Improve

 * 1) Black Feminist Future - Black Feminist Future
 * 2) Misogyny in rap music - Misogyny in rap music
 * 3) Alondra Nelson - Alondra Nelson
 * 4) "Django Woman" by Janelle Monáe - Django Jane

= Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality = The Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality (IRWGS) at Columbia University in New York, NY was created in 2008. It originated as the Institution for Research on Women and Gender in 1987. In collaboration with various other departments, organizations, faculty and student groups, the IRWGS focuses on engaging students in interdisciplinary study regarding feminist, LGBTQ and queer studies in both an undergraduate and graduate program. Institute directors have been professors from social science, English, ethnic studies, women's studies and gender studies fields including Carolyn Heilbrun, Saidiya Hartman and Alondra Nelson. In 2012, the IRWGS created an oral history project to showcase their work overtime as an institute. The IRWGS has released various publications through their past biannual newsletter Feminist News and can be currently followed on various social media platforms. Overall, the IRWGS increases visibility of women, gender and sexuality studies that have not been previously discussed prior to its creation. By increasing accessibility to study these topics, relationships can further be fostered in connection to the fields and examination of their intersection with society's past, present and future can be understood. Additionally, this allows for greater insight to analyze specifically how various social constructs have influenced ideas of women, gender and sexuality, therefore, influencing social interactions.

About
The IRWGS focuses on interdisciplinary feminist and queer study and teaching at Colombia University in New York, NY. The institute offers a Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies undergraduate program and a Feminist scholarship graduate certification. Undergraduate students are offered the opportunity to major, concentrate or special concentrate in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality studies that include taking courses in Feminist Theory, Historical Approaches to Feminist Questions and Gender and Power in Transnational Perspective. Additionally, graduate students can participate as certificate students after having prior studied theoretical paradigms in feminist scholarship, Graduate Fellows or Graduate Teaching Assistants. The IRWGS chooses individuals to fill these positions who are committed to supporting the IRWGS and its endeavors of expanding academic pursuits regarding women's, gender and sexuality studies in particular. Students are prepared to successfully participate in professional and academic settings due to receiving a thorough education on prestigious interdisciplinary study, teaching and activist practice. Both programs examine history and theory of gender and/or sexuality studies. Additionally, students examine all factors resulting in social indifference including intersecting roles of gender, sexuality, race and class.

Faculty consists of individuals from various disciplines across the Humanities and Social Sciences departments, as well as the various Colombia Colleges and the institute currently consists of over fifty faculty members. Core members include: Saidiya Hartman who is a professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and on the editorial board of Callaloo, John Hopkins University's journal that focuses on literature, art and culture of the African diaspora, Alondra Nelson who is a president of Social Science Research Council and a professor of sociology at Columbia that has written publications on race, historical oppression of black people, The Blank Panther Party, the intersection of DNA, race and history and Afrofuturism , as well as Katherine Franke who is a professor of law, gender and sexuality and directs the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law that has written publications on slavery, marriage rights and civil rights in which she draws from feminist, queer and critical race theory. Additional members are in fields and departments retaining to ethnicity, comparative literature, gender studies, philosophy and other social sciences. The members rotate in committees that determine the curriculum and institute activities. They also hold the responsibility to ensure a broad array of perspectives, issues and identities are all regarded.

Undergraduate thesis-writing seminars, dissertation workshops and directed reading seminars are all offered to students. Directed reading seminars allow students to engage with texts through guidance of an individual who has obtained a more advanced background of the subject that benefits students while creating theses and writing dissertations. Each students' knowledge based thesis and dissertation contribute to the expansion of women's, gender and sexuality studies in higher education.

Once per year the Feminist Pedagogy class is provided for graduate students who plan to continue in the academic world onward from graduation offering them the opportunity to interact with guest speakers significant to their studies. Feminist Pedagogy breaks down the social frameworks that have created inequality and heightened marginalization of women. Additionally, the focus remains on gender justice, overcoming oppression and how gender has influenced society's institutions. In the classroom, teachers and students act as subjects of their own learning to influence how the learners interact with each other, the material and how they will use what they have learned onward in actual action. Feminist Pedagogy builds on personal experience to maintain the self as the subject and open dialogue to mutually explore their experiences. These practices build community and allow for development of leadership, as well as build community empowerment that is once realized allows the group to recognize their ability in creating a less oppressive system of society. Lastly, a greater sense of community empowerment empowers each individual's voice facilitating authenticity that circles back to using the self as the subject for the most progressive group learning.

The IRWGS is open to collaboration with other departments, institutions, centers and student groups who’s mission falls in line with that of IRWGS’s. Organizations the IRWGS is currently in connection with are: Barnard Center for Research on Women (BCRW), Center for Gender + Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School, Colombia Center for the Study of Social Difference, the Sexuality Women & Gender Project, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University Center for American Studies, Columbia University Center for Core Curriculum, Columbia University Center for Palestine Studies, Columbia Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race (CSER), The Heyman Center for the Humanities Columbia University (HCH), Columbia University Institute for the Study of Human Rights (ISHR), Center for Justice at Columbia University, Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life (IRCPL), Institute for Research in African-American Studies (IRAAS), Department for Middle East, South Asian and African Studies at Columbia University, Middle East Institute, Maison Francaise and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Council. Working in collaboration with these various groups displays the institute's commitment to interdisciplinary education that focuses on women's, gender and sexuality studies in relation to other fields of study. Historically, women's, gender and sexuality studies have been excluded from world history despite their intertwined development. For example, lack of intersection is displayed when reviewing the 2003 World History Association conference where there was only one panel and two articles that focused on women's and gender studies, and none on sexuality. The lack of exchange leaves young scholars without information on women's, gender and sexuality studies that hinders them from proper examination of how social history has developed. The IRWGS fosters this exchange of histories by collaborating with groups that focus on justice, religion, culture, South Asian studies, African studies, human rights, ethnicity, law, social difference and American studies.

History
The Institution for Research on Women and Gender was founded in 1987. It was not until 2013 the Institute added “Sexuality Studies” under the direction of Alondra Nelson and became the Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality (IRWGS). This was a result of the heightened importance of sexuality studies and that it is interwoven with the research of the institute being that their goal is to provide an interdisciplinary education. Beginning in the early 1990s, the institute offered meeting space for the Lesbian and Gay Studies group which allowed them a safe space to discuss identity constructs and queer politics. Additionally, courses in sexuality studies were offered.

The institution’s first director was Carolyn Heilbrun form 1987 to 1989. Heilbrun developed the institute’s beginning plans for how the institute’s faculty would participate and how the curriculum would develop. Professor Martha Howell proceeded Heilburn for five years. Onward, Professor Victoria de Grazia led the institute for two years followed by Professor Jean Howard, Rosalind Morris, Lila AbuLughod, Saidiya Hartman, Alondra Nelson, Marianne Hirsch and the current director Patricia Dailey.

In 2012, the “Feminist to the Core” lecture series was introduced to the program to greater connect feminist and LGBTQ studies to the Columbia Core.

In 2017, The Elaine Combs-Schilling Memorial Fund, in name of Margaret Elaine Combs-Schilling (1949-2016), was established. Elaine was a professor of anthropology at Columbia University for 33 years who became active with the institute in the 1990s. She taught various graduate courses and helped paved the way for the establishment of the institute. The fund offers graduate students the opportunity to partake in summer research through the Elaine Combs-Schilling Memorial Fellowship. Additionally, the fund provides students and the larger Colombia University community with the opportunity to hear from a major women’s, gender and/or sexuality study scholar once yearly. By hearing from scholar's who have chosen to focus on examination of social history through women's, gender and sexuality studies, students are given the opportunity to stray away from the traditional knowledge validation process that has added to systems of oppression and marginalization.

Graduate Program
PhD students focusing on Arts and Sciences receive a IRWGS Graduate Certificate.

Students may also participate in the IRWGS Graduate Colloquium and Theory Salon series. In the Graduate Colloquium, students are given the opportunity to showcase a dissertation chapter, conference paper, course essay or writing piece to a small audience in order to practice presenting their work and to receive feedback. In the IRWGS Theory Salons, a graduate student or faculty member leads a seminar in which a IRWGS faculty member has chosen a specific text for in-depth group discussion. In Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire argues how the oppressed must liberate themselves and their oppressors by restoring humanity for all rather than becoming oppressors themselves. In order to do this, the oppressed must assess the problems themselves through higher education and group-discussion. Additionally, focusing on group discussion enables examination of social interactions that hold power relationships in place that lead to further marginalization. The IRWGS opened a platform for discussion among scholars, professors, students and leaders in the movement, that has not always been previously present in higher education, to aid in the process of the oppressed gaining liberation.

IRWGS Oral History Project
In 2012, the IRWGS approached the Columbia Center for Oral History Research about creating a project that would examine the IRWGS’s growth and development of feminism at Columbia University, its contributions to feminist scholarship and its larger role of leadership within the entire university.

The project was created and guided by research questions that focused on IRWGS’s role as a political actor within Columbia University, its hard work to align feminism within the greater university mission and its ability to succeed despite little initial support from the university. As the project greater developed, questions began to focus on issues of generation, activism, development in feminism, heightened support of the institute and social differences.

A total of 68 interviews were conducted with 36 current and past directors, faculty, administrators and students amounting to 90 hours of recordings. Due to the project’s time frame, many individuals who were influential to the creation and development of the institute were unable to be interviewed. Transcripts of interview selections that have been edited by the narrator are available for viewers. Selections include information on the IRWGS history and major events with many reoccurring themes and arguments.

The project was funded by the President’s Office and was the first project administered through the Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theory and Empirics (INCITE) that developed from the Columbia Center for Oral History Research.

IRWGS Publications and Social Media
Feminist News, IRWGS’s biannual newsletter, was first published September 1st, 1987. In August 2011, the last copy was last released in print. All previous versions can be found online.

The IRWGS Blog can be followed for information regarding Event Recaps, Announcements, Featured Articles, Graduate Fellows, LGBTQ, the Women, Gender and Sexuality Award and Women’s Studies Courses.

IRWGS can also be followed on both Twitter and Facebook for updates on the institute's current actions.