Student to present research in UNL’s Women and Gender Studies Colloquium Series
By Stephanie Cavazos on October 27th, 2014 Daily Nebraskan
On Monday, Oct. 27, the Nebraska Union will host the third addition to the Women’s and Gender Studies Colloquium Series from 3:30 to 5 p.m. in room Regency A.
Danielle Rue, a senior women’s and gender studies major, will give a digital history presentation exploring the beginning of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s women’s studies program in the 1960s and 1970s. The presentation also includes insight on race and sexuality controversies during this time period.
“People had to say ‘women studies is important; we’re going to take advantage of that,’” Rue said. “I was really interested in the history behind it and how the women’s studies program came to be.”
In Fall 2012, after taking a Women’s Studies 101 course, Rue decided this course was a gateway into something bigger. After writing a paper for the course, constructed by Carly Woods, Rue decided to apply for a UCARE (Undergraduate Creative Activity and Research Experiences) grant to start working on her honors thesis.
“I worked on this research project all of last year,” Rue said. “Initially, this was an oral history project. I got distracted by the archives at UNL, which have digitized yearbooks. While looking at these yearbooks I found a whole bunch of really cool stuff that happened before the program started: around the ‘60s and ‘70s.”
After finding this information, Rue decided to create a digital presentation; a website. Woods, an assistant professor of communication studies and women’s and gender studies, took on the role of being Rue’s faculty adviser for her undergraduate thesis.
“Danielle and I met several times early on to work out the details,” Woods said. “We met about once or twice a month to check in on progress, challenges and how to frame her research.”
Rue is the only undergraduate member who will present in the colloquium series thus far. Woods said she finds having a student voice is beneficial to the program.
“In the colloquium series, we really like to see students as the presenters,” Woods said. “It’s kind of neat to have different perspectives within the presentations. For students, Danielle is a great example of a student who has great research and writing skills, and she’s thinking about how other students can benefit from this project.”
Rue will give a walkthrough of her website and discussing the purpose of her UCARE project.
“For the presentation, I’m just going to give context about the project, how I came about doing the project and the perspective that I’m taking,” Rue said. “Then I’m basically going to go through my website and share a bit of my research that I’m doing, and show some of the articles and talk about some of the issues that my project is discussing.”
Rue’s website that she will reference during the presentation is now live at:
unlwgshistory.wordpress.com
arts@dailynebraskan.com
