VOLUME X, NUMBER 3 NOVEMBER 2003

October was an exciting month for Women's Studies.  In addition to co-sponsoring events with Services for Women Students (SWS) including the University Village film series, we also worked on the Love Your Body Project.  Azenett Garza and Leigh Shaw coordinated advertising as well as assembling the collage depicting beauty across time and culture.    Women's Studies showed the film "Real Women Have Curves" in the Diversity Center with those in attendance participating in a discussion of the film, collage, and issues of beauty for women.  These events were co-sponsored by the Diversity Center, Services for Women Students, Services for Multicultural Students, the LCH Council and Senator, Estudiantes Unidos, and MEChA. 

We have begun preparing for Women's History Month in March.  If you are interested in volunteering for the committee, please contact Carol Merrill in SWS (626-6090.)  We need a lot of support for this month-long project. 

Additionally, we are planning a retreat in January.   The goals are to ascertain where we are and where the program should be heading.  Of interest is the ongoing dialogue on a possible name change from Women's Studies to either Women and Gender Studies or just Gender Studies.  Please check http://research.umbc.edu/~korenman/wmst/womvsgen.html for more information. We would like to continue dialogue begun by Sally Shigley, Marjukka Ollilainen, Priti Kumar, Michelle Groncki, and Cassi Meyerhoffer,  so please join the discussion. 

Finally, Women’s Studies courses to be offered in the spring include Introduction to Women's Studies, Feminist Theories, and Topics in Women's Studies.  Also check for Directed Readings and Internships, as well as cross-listed courses Psychology of Diversity, Women's Health Issues, and Women in American History; take advantage of the varied expertise of our outstanding faculty.

(This month, it is our great pleasure to read the original words of Barbara Bernstein, Executive Council member and long-time friend of the program – and, of course, a writer.)

Who is Barbara Bernstein, and why is she featured in the Weber State University Women's Studies newsletter?  She's the one who gets the key to the police academy annex every year for the annual Women's Studies picnic. It's who you know, not what you know, in successful picnicking as in so many other fields. Barbara is on good terms with police academy secretary, Vicki Jex, because they used to work together in continuing education. 

Nowadays, Barbara works for University Communications, a segment of University Relations. She still writes brochures and advertisements for some continuing education programs, and is trying, like all her co-workers in UC, to give all the university's printed materials a look and a joie de vivre that proclaims, "This is Weber!"  

Barbara is the widow of a WSU history professor (Jerome) whose students used to call him up from bars late at night to settle bets about history, such as "whether Hitler was on our side or whether he was with those other guys."  Jerry was a walking data-base, and his death has left her with a mind half empty. When she wants to find out something about history (or even baseball), she has to look it up like everybody else. 

Born in New Jersey and reared in Hood River, Oregon, from age three, she went off to college at Utah State University. Both parents were Utahns, and her dad told people he was sending her "home" to college. A bachelor's degree in English and journalism from USU has taken Barbara this far. Her favorite class there was called "Utah's Weekly Newspapers." If she were rich, she would buy the next Utah weekly paper that comes up for sale and live happily ever after practicing community journalism. 

Weber State University, the University of Utah, University of Idaho, Washington State University and the University of Washington are other institutions where she has studied. She has been a writer for The Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News and a proof-reader for the Standard Examiner.  

"Back in the day," when she was at her peak of physical perfection, she was a Cub Scout den mother, a Brownie leader, a Junior Girl Scout leader and a foster mother. That's where physical perfection gets you. 

The late woodcut artist, Harry Taylor, commissioned Barbara to write some haiku to accompany some of his woodcuts of animals, and made them into a paperback book with one picture and one poem per page. She was mildly astonished to see a stack of them for sale in the gift shop of an art gallery in Park City. A journalist friend shopping with her sniffed and said, "Well, it's not that hard to write POOR haiku." 

Like many old ladies, Barbara keeps cats as familiar spirits, as well as "Shar," her white Chinese Shar Pei, a companion on walks around the neighborhood, when Barbara's worn old knees are up to it. Her other pet, "Legs," a tarantula, left home when grown daughter, Justina, moved back.  A vegetarian, Justina cannot bear the brave chirping of the live crickets Barbara buys for Legs. 

A freehand crocheter, Barbara is working on a crusader's cape, all tails and tatters. She enjoys reading biographies, histories of small Utah communities and folklore. She goes on historical society bus tours and attends regional festivals, like Hooper Tomato Days. She attends the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada, every winter. Formerly a two-mile-a-day swimmer, Barbara is hoping for a new knee and a new bathing suit for Christmas, and a new life as an athlete after that.

(Thanks, Barbara, for all you do, including writing your profile. We look forward to our continuing – and entertaining – relationship!)

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An update on some WS graduates …. Judy Tassone is now working in WSU’s admissions office as a transcript evaluator. Heather Harris (along with Jason Hurd and children) has relocated to Arizona to begin graduate studies at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. Natasha Kap is now employed as a Case Manager for Community Health Plan of Washington, moving there from her recent employment with Puget Sound Kidney Centers. Community Health Plan of Washington consists of community and migrant health care centers and provides services to low-income individuals in the state of Washington.  She will be the first social worker ever hired for this position. She looks forward to her new office in downtown Seattle and  to the opportunity to "develop a psychosocial assessment, introduce them to a social work model, and serve on specific illness at-risk teams." 

5 Nov. – SWS/WS film, "The White Season" discussed by Toni Price; 6 PM, University Village Community

Room (UVCR.)

12 Nov. – SWS Wisdom on Wednesdays, "Debt-Free Living," JuNare Cope; noon - UB Lair & 7 PM – UVCR.

- "The Maturation Presentation", presented by Planned Parenthood and co-sponsored by Women's Studies and F.U.N. (Feminist United Network); 7:00 PM; UB Lair

18 Nov. - SWS Wisdom on Wednesdays – "AFTERSHOCK: Two lives, too short - The Gage and Paul Wayment

Story," Valerie Burke, Hill Air Force Base; noon - UB Lair & 7 PM – UVCR.

- Executive Council Mtg; 2:30 PM; SS115

19 Nov. – SWS/WS film; "How to Make an American Quilt" discussed by Maria Parrilla de Kokal; 6 PM,

UVCR.