WGSS academic chair to be named for WILL founder

The students involved in the Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies program will soon have their own academic chairwoman who will act as director of the program and be able to cross-list his or her classes.

The chair will be named in honor of former dean, Stephanie Bennett-Smith, who founded the WILL (Women Involved in Living and Learning) program 30 years ago.

The idea of creating a Westhampton chair was first introduced almost a decade ago when current Westhampton College Dean Juliette Landphair came to the university as assistant director of the WILL program.

Landphair worked to come up with what she referred to as "the biggest dream world possible" for female students when the idea of an academic chair was proposed. She was looking to strengthen the future for women's studies at Richmond through what she called the Westhampton Women's Studies Initiative. The three main goals for the initiative included expanding the Westhampton Center, creating a women's studies chair/director and creating a women's resource director.

Holly Blake, associate dean for women's education and development, said that many Westhampton College alumnae were responsible for the creation of this position.

The Westhampton chair will have three responsibilities: to teach dedicated WGSS courses and advise WGSS students, to be a leader on campus, especially in the WGSS community, and to be an advocate for women's studies.

WGSS is an interdisciplinary major and minor that focuses on the historical, political and legal issues that surround gender and sexuality.

The university will conduct a nationwide search to fill the new position and ultimately hire someone for the 2012-2013 school year.

"We are looking for somebody who has done some really cool research in women's studies," Landphair said. "Somebody who cares about the students and who is a teacher-scholar model at U of R."

In addition to the chairwoman's responsibilities, Blake said that more attention would be given to gender and sexuality related concerns on campus for all students.

Blake also said that having a person who could devote all of his or her time to WGSS would help support the already strong initiatives on campus and enable the university to move forward in creating an inclusive community.

Landphair hopes that the new academic chair will be able to bring a little bit of WILL to all Westhampton women.

"Any knowledge of gender, of sexuality, of masculinity is the kind of knowledge that promotes the idea that the personal is political," Landphair said. "You can't separate out what is going on in your personal life from the power structure around you and I have seen how gender matters in the lives, outlooks and perspectives of students here at Richmond."

Contact reporter Bria Eulitt at bria.eulitt@richmond.edu