This fall, the Gender Research Institute at Dartmouth’s first post-graduate fellows will explore gender issues through research and discussions with students in residential halls.
Brianne Gallagher, the program’s post-doctoral fellow, researches the relationships between war and trauma from the perspective of gender issues. Her work concentrates on the politics of wounded U.S. soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq and the gendered, racial and colonial dynamics of veterans once they have left the war. Gallagher said she was drawn to apply for the position because of GRID’s mission, which emphasizes the effects of structures such as gender, race and economic inequality.
Both Gallagher and Stephanie Chavez-Yenter ’14, the program’s post-baccalaureate fellow, serve as faculty advisors to two independent living-learning communities. Gallagher works with the Triangle House on LGBTQ issues, advising the special projects led by the house’s residents.
As the GRID post-baccalaureate fellow, Chavez-Yenter works with the gender neutral floor in McLane residence hall as the faculty advisor, leading discussions of gender inequality in everyday life.
Chavez-Yenter’s involvement with GRID extends back to her senior year, when she was the program intern. Her current work involves meeting with faculty, students and other campus programs, like the Center for Gender and Student Engagement.
The work of the two new post-graduate fellow positions complements GRID’s existing programming. GRID director Annabel Martin wrote in an email that a center like GRID had been discussed since the 1990s, but only became a reality once former interim College President Carol Folt sponsored the project. Martin said that GRID was formed to enhance the visibility and research successes of the women’s and gender studies department through a dedicated center or institute focuses on gender related issues.
In the future, Chavez-Yenter hopes to grow the institute.
“We’d like to expand past a one-term seminar and be much more embedded in Dartmouth and funding opportunities for students,” Chavez-Yenter said. “I think that there will be a lot more intentional programming to help students funnel into doing research with faculty.”
GRID administrator Nancy O’Brien said that the institute has established its vision of faculty, staff and student collaboration on research. She hopes that this will lead to increased campus dialogue on issues surrounding gender.
Martin highlighted GRID’s distinct approach to engaging with gender issues.
“Our vision of linking teaching, activism and research is unique in higher education,” Martin wrote. “We place all intellectual work on the same level and try to solve problems from the perspective of diversity — the more diverse the practitioners, the better we solve the problems at hand.”
In the spring of 2013, the institute hosted its first seminar, “Seeds of Change: Gender, Scholarship and Social Change.” Gallagher said she will organize this spring’s symposium titled “Free Speech and Social Change.”
Run with the spring symposium, the GRID spring fellows program aims to promote research from students, staff and faculty. Students enrolled in an upper-level research class, taught by Gallagher, will automatically become fellows, while faculty and staff fill out a separate application to be involved with the program. Over the course of the term, the fellows must produce a body of work that is on track to be published, Chavez-Yenter said.
Recently, 2013 GRID fellow Jennifer Alford-Teaster published a report on income inequality in New Hampshire.
