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Women’s Leadership Produces More Enduring Change:

Conference at ASU Saturday Examines Women’s History

Story by Bernadette Cahill

Noted women’s historian Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner will be the keynote speaker at ASU’s annual Women’s Leadership Conference that takes place this Saturday, March 1. Wagner, whose talk will focus on the Iroquois influence on early feminists, will speak at the conference’s closing banquet in Plemmons Student Union’s Blue Ridge Ballroom. Conference organizers will also announce the annual Women of Influence awards that day.

Wagner’s talk illustrates one aspect of women’s history that is the general theme of this year’s conference. The Women’s Leadership Conference typically occurs in either February or March, with subject matter varying from year to year, but the 2008 theme and the date of the conference coincide with the start of Women’s History Month, which occurs in March every year.

The title is “Herstory! 2008.” Appalachian’s Center for Student Involvement and Leadership sponsors the conference, and this year ASU’s Department of Women’s Studies has joined forces with the center in order to finance Wagner’s visit, according to Tracey Wright, ASU vice-chancellor of student development and one of this year’s co-chairs of the programming committee of the conference.

Wagner was one of the first women in the country to receive a doctorate for work in women’s studies. She was a founder of one of the country’s first women’s studies programs, at California State University. As an expert in women’s history, she appeared in Ken Burns’ PBS documentary “Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony;” the PBS special “One Woman, One Vote;” and has been interviewed on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” and “Democracy Now.”

The idea of women’s history for this year’s Women’s Leadership Conference came up last year. “The value of history is tremendous,” said Wright. “In my opinion it is unfortunate in our country that the contributions of women often are omitted as we are telling our history as a nation, yet their contributions are great and our nation would not be as great without the contributions of some of the amazing women in our history.

“There is [also] a direct tie between women’s history and women’s leadership,” said Wright. “Women lead in very different ways oftentimes than the way men lead. They are more inclusive in nature, and have a more adaptive and a stronger type of change [arrangement] so when you look at some of the contributions of women in our history, it has often a more lasting effect than some of the things where our male counterparts are involved.”

Titles for discussion topics during breakout sessions are: Gender Socialization of Girls Throughout History; Astrological Insights for Self Discovery; Creating a Bond of Sisterhood across Race and Class; the Life and Death of Golda Meir and Everything in Between; How to Prevent Sexual Assault: What Men Can Do; I Am Who I Am & I Love It; Queering History: A Look at the Rest of Us; Our Mother, Our Earth; From Africa to America;

Women’s Self Defense; Let’s Talk Real Sisterhood; and Attaining Respect and Honor.

For more information, call 828-262-6252 or click to www.csil.appstate.edu and look for “Women’s Leadership Conference.” Registration deadline is March 1.

Women of Influence Awards

Organizers will announce the annual Women of Influence Awards during Saturday’s Women’s Leadership Conference at ASU. All those honored are local women, usually two faculty or staff of ASU, two from the wider Watauga County community and two students. Students themselves initiated the honors several years ago.

“This is an opportunity to recognize some unsung heroes who are doing amazing things on a daily basis, but don’t always get recognized for the incredible things they are doing,” said Tracey Wright, ASU’s Vice-chancellor of Student Development and one of this year’s co-chairs of the conference’s programming committee.

The awards announcement takes place Saturday at 4:40 p.m. in the Linville Falls Room, number 226 in the Plemmons Student Union.

Want To Go?

Date: Saturday, March 1
Time: Noon to 6:30 p.m.
Location: Plemmons Student Union, ASU
Cost: $10

Women, the Presidency and Native Rights:

Early Feminist History Session Friday Afternoon

Two nineteenth-century feminists who advocated changes linked to social and political issues that are still unresolved in 2008 are the subjects of a 4:00 p.m. question and answer session with noted women’s historian Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner this Friday, February 29. ASU’s Department of Women’s Studies is sponsoring this event, according to Tracey Wright, ASU vice-chancellor of student development and one of this year’s co-chairs of the programming committee of the ASU’s Women’s Leadership Conference.

In 1872, Victoria Woodhull was the first woman ever to run for president of the United States. She was an advocate of an eight-hour workday, graduated income tax, social welfare programs and profit sharing.

Matilda Joslyn Gage supported native sovereignty and treaty rights and also advocated civil rights and the separation of church and state. The Mohawk nation adopted Gage into its wolf clan. Wagner is the nation’s foremost authority on Gage and is executive director of the Gage Foundation in Fayetteville, N.Y.

Want To Go?

Date: Friday, February 29
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Plemmons Student Union’s Linville Falls Room (room 226)
Cost: Free