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November 2022 Newsletter

Happy November, Golden Rams!

We hope the semester has been kind to you, and that you are taking good care as the days grow shorter!

This edition of our newsletter comes to you just as we are about to head into the period of late fall and early winter filled with many holidays. This time of year can be really joyful, and it also presents many challenges. November brings to us the Thanksgiving holiday, and with it, the legacy of the displacement and harm of Native and Indigenous communities in North America. 

The Thanksgiving holiday is also a time that is full of narratives about family and togetherness, which can be painful for folks who come from unsupportive families of origin. It also can be difficult for folks without the means or ability to be with their loved ones. There is the economic pressure of the holiday season, with expectations of abundant food and gift giving, particularly with rising inflation and cost of living. There are challenges for folks who don't celebrate holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas this time of year - everything from navigating school and office closures to frustration about the lack of acknowledgement of other important holidays. 

And all of this is happening in the context of yet another year in which the COVID-19 pandemic continues to bring challenges. These challenges can be particularly difficult for those with chronic illness and compromised immune systems who may want to gather with family and friends but be hindered by concerns for their health, and the ever growing public opinion that the pandemic has ended despite evidence to the contrary. There is also the incredible emotional toll that nearly three years managing an ongoing pandemic brings. 

We also know many of you have been watching the election returns anxiously awaiting the outcome of the Midterm elections for the United States Senate and House of Representatives. The staff at the Center for Women & Gender Equity has been watching along with you! We know it can be stressful to wait to learn what the political landscape of the next two years will look like, so we encourage you to do what you need to manage this uncertainty. Unplug, unwind, connect with your people, or enjoy the unseasonably warm weather being predicted for Saturday - whatever caring for yourself looks like right now, we invite you to do it. 

While it can be challenging to navigate the unknowns about the election outcomes, we want to pause and congratulate everyone who participated in this election. Voting is complex and often challenging, particularly for folks who have been disenfranchised on the basis of their race, gender, or class. But voting is not the only means to participate in the democratic process, and we want to pause and offer our thanks to everyone who has engaged in some way throughout this election cycle. Your energy and labor is acknowledged, appreciated, and honored. If you're seeking support or ideas about how to stay engaged after the election, please check out this guide from our friends at the Center for Trans and Queer Advocacy.

The final outcome of this election cycle is still being determined, but there are a few outcomes that we can uplift and celebrate today. 

In every state where abortion rights were on the ballot, voters chose to protect them. In Vermont, California, and Michigan, ballot measures to incorporate reproductive freedom in state constitutions passed. In Kentucky, voters rejected a proposed anti-abortion amendment to the state’s constitution, while Montana voters rejected a measure that would have required medical workers to provide care to infants born prematurely or in rare instances of surviving an attempted abortion or face penalties. 

In addition to reproductive rights, a record number of LGBTQ candidates running in the 2022 midterms have won their races. This defeats the previous record of 336 elected LGBTQ officials in 2020. This year also marked a historic number of trans and queer candidates for public office: at least 1,065 out LGBTQ people ran for office this year. 

Other landmark wins for represenation in goverment included Summer Lee being the first Black woman elected to congress from Pennsylvania.  Dr. Arvin Venkat is the first Indian-American elected to the Pennsylvania General Assembly. Austin Davis has been elected the first Black man to serve as Lieutenant Governor in Pennsylvania, and reproductive rights advocate La'Tasha D. Mayes became the first out lesbian in the Pennsylvania General Assembly and the first woman to represent House District 24. 

In terms of human rights, Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont all voted to ban slavery or indentured servitude as punishment for a crime. While Louisiana also had an anti-slavery measure on their ballot, it failed. However, prison reformers were opposed to this measure as it would not have have banned slavery as punishment for a crime, but instead would have replaced existing langauge with language saying that the state constitution's ban on slavery and involuntary servitude "does not apply to the otherwise lawful administration of criminal justice." Several cities have approved measures that would increase government spending on affordable housing. 

Of course, there are still many challenges that this election cycle has brought. Texas Governor Gregg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, both of whom have supported legislation restricting LGBTQIA+ rights and have supported extremely restrictive abortion laws. 

We can both be proud of the progress being made and hold space for the very real sadness and anger at the continued challenges to bodily autonomy and human rights. There will always be more work to do in the name of justice and liberation. To do the work of liberation, we need to take care of ourselves and each other. 

We hope this edition of the newsletter offers some tools to help you to navigate this time of year, and that you are able to do whatever brings the most peace, safety, and joy as we head into the end of the semester. 

Best wishes! 

Mx. Tess Benser
(they/them/theirs)
Assistant Director of Outreach & Engagement
Center for Women & Gender Equity 

Table Of Contents

1. Upcoming Events
2. Art As Solidarity
3. Advocacy in Action: National Hunger & Homelessness Awareness Week
4. Queerness & Gender
5. Fiber Arts In Sum
6. Third Annual Gender Justice Conference Announcement

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Art As Solidarity

National Hunger & Homelessness Awareness Week

By Jocelyn Brown (she/her)

Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week occurs every November, the week prior to Thanksgiving (this year, 11/12-11/20). According to the Awareness Week’s website, the first event was held nearby at Villanova University in 1975. Now, more than 700 schools or other activist groups nationally observe Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week to raise awareness about issues of food insecurity and homelessness in their communities. 

    Last year, for HON 311: Stewardship and Civic Engagement, each group of students was paired with a local non-profit to help them write a grant to submit to the Chester County Community Foundation. My group worked with North Star of Chester County, an organization that helps single parents with dependent children at risk of homelessness find financial stability and independence. North Star wanted to expand their office’s resource pantry, so we researched food and resource insecurity in Chester County. Because I am not from the area, I had internalized how expensive it was compared to my county, but most of our findings still shocked me.

    At the end of this article, I will discuss a donation drive we’re hosting for North Star’s resource pantry!

Food Insecurity in Chester County

    Chester County Food Bank’s annual reports provide a wealth of information about food insecurity in Chester County. Because the definition of food insecurity varies from source to source, the Food Bank defines food insecurity as “a household that is without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious and culturally appropriate food at any given time.” This is the most inclusive definition I found in my research. As almost every college student already knows, food here is not affordable. Overall, Chester County is the most expensive county in Pennsylvania. The average cost of a meal is .84 cents more in Chester County than in Pennsylvania as a whole. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic causing supply chain issues has dramatically increased the cost of food. In 2020 alone, Chester County Food Bank saw a 30% increase in the need for food insecurity interventions. 

Affordable food is often not the most nutritional food. Nutritional food includes the daily consumption of whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. Since fresh fruits and vegetables are more expensive than processed snack foods or instant meals, families typically choose cheaper options. While being more expensive, perishable foods are also just more difficult for families with busy or unpredictable schedules. 

Identity compounds issues of food insecurity. According to Well Being in the Nation Network, almost 40% of Chester County residents have low access to grocery stores, which they define as the percentage of residents that live farther than one mile in urban areas and ten miles in rural areas from the nearest grocery store. This is called a food desert. Because they lack access to basic grocery stores, these residents likely also lack access to culturally appropriate specialty stores. Of course, food deserts are often low-income areas, and identity largely decides where people can afford to or feel safe living. The USDA states single mothers with children have the highest rates of food insecurity in the country. The COVID-19 pandemic is also not over. Elderly people, immuno-compromised people, or really anyone still masking potentially faces hostility every time they step into a grocery store.     Special shopping hours for these customers have mostly gone away. 

Finally, Feeding America points out that food insecure families are not necessarily food insecure all the time. Perhaps money is tight only at the end of the month or certain times of the year, but these households still deserve help when they need it. Additionally, food insecure families have significantly less money to use on other needs, such as basic hygiene products. Feeding America writes of “a household’s need to make trade-offs between important basic needs, such as housing or medical bills, and purchasing nutritionally adequate foods.” It is understandable that food comes last when other burdens, such as rent and medical bills, have a due date. Food insecurity, and poverty as a whole, is a vicious cycle. 

Housing Insecurity in Chester County

    Many people assume that poverty could not exist here, as Chester is the 35th wealthiest county in the nation, but there are municipalities that experience poverty rates of over 15%. These areas are called “pockets of poverty” because high median incomes in the rest of the county hide their existence on a statewide map. While many food insecure residents in Chester County make a salary above the poverty line, it is still not enough to eat healthy because of the high cost of living. The same thing can be said for living comfortably because of the lack of affordable housing. Housing insecurity can look very different for everyone, but it can generally be defined as “a continuum of experiences that include frequently relocating, being unable to consistently pay rent or mortgage, living in an overcrowded household, and/or staying in a car or abandoned building due to economic hardship.” 

People lack housing security in Chester County because of the housing market. According to the Chester County Partnership to End Homelessness, in the state of Pennsylvania, there are only 39 affordable and available units per 100 low-income households. Fair market rent is a statistic that calculates how much a renter should be paying for the property, depending on its standard of living. The fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Chester County is $1,211. Even with a full-time job and multiple roommates, many people can barely pay their rent each month. This leaves little room for savings, so any emergency can get a formerly housed person evicted in the blink of an eye. Again, poverty is a cycle. Due to the pandemic, buying a house has also become 10 to 12% more expensive in the Philadelphia suburbs in the last year. The pandemic also means that people have less safe options to turn to; some shelters have been operating at 50% capacity to ensure social distancing. 

    Student populations in college towns also make the market much worse. College campuses usually only provide housing for 20% of their student population, leaving 80% to live off campus. And student populations are growing fast. Around 70% of high school graduates now attend college, but the growth of on-campus housing has not met the demand, leaving less room for people from that area. Just this year, WCU accepted too many incoming first-years and were scrambling for last-minute housing, including making RAs room together. The lack of privacy and agency in a dorm (an overcrowded household) is another reason students choose to move to off-campus housing. However, neither option is particularly affordable. In neighboring New Jersey, a review of their college towns found that the presence of a college brings a 10% increase in rent/home prices. Landlords will also increase rent prices or break contracts with students because they know that they can get away with it.

In Chester County, in 2017, as many as 570 residents did not have a place to stay on any given night. By 2022, that number was down to 402. Issues of identity also complicate housing insecurity. Around 49% of these people identified as Black, Asian, Latine, or mixed race, and 35% identified as femme. People with a disability and single parents are also disproportionately represented in the homeless or extremely low-income renter population. Many of us rely on friends and partners to split the cost of rent, and when these relationships turn abusive, those who have experienced harm in their household face a difficult choice. Should they endure the harm, or should they become homeless? The Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence reported that 93% of respondents experiencing intimate partner violence ranked housing as their highest need. These patterns are reflected both in Chester County and nationwide. While I could not find specific statistics for Pennsylvania, around 7% of youth in the United States identify as LGBTQ+, but they make up 40% of the youth population currently experiencing homelessness. Some of the factors include rejection by family, aging out of foster care, poverty, and intimate partner violence again. According to a national report by the Williams Institute, 17% of LGBTQ+ adults reported experiences of homelessness, while only 6% of all adults reported the same. Black LGBTQ+ adults reported the most homeless experiences overall. Of course, these numbers may be even higher if some people are in situations where they feel they cannot disclose their identity. 

Food insecurity and housing insecurity are closely intertwined. A 2021 study in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics found them to be bidirectional and predictors of each other. However, most programs are not equipped to address both problems at the same time. Our research for North Star mostly focused on Chester County residents that are left behind. According to the Chester County Food Bank, the average four-person family in Chester County needs to make $78k to meet their basic needs, but families will not qualify for government aid unless they make below $41k. The average income in West Chester specifically is $45k: too much for aid, but not enough to live comfortably. The Food Bank estimates that at least 56% of food insecure Chester County residents do not qualify for SNAP benefits. 

I reconnected with Don Neimetz, the Executive Director of North Star, for this article, because we were attempting to address both issues with our grant. Don was able to show me their office’s new resource pantry, where families can fill a bag or two during their monthly case management visits. Even for residents who do qualify for SNAP, the program is not comprehensive: especially important for North Star’s families is the necessary personal hygiene and lifestyle products that they cannot buy with SNAP benefits, such as laundry detergent. These are the purchases that, if we are lucky enough, we never have to think about, but we would definitely notice their absence. 

How You Can Take Action

    First, you have to take care of yourself before you can take care of other people. If anyone is experiencing resource insecurity, WCU’s Resource Pantry is open from Monday to Friday between 10 AM and 4 PM. Their page also links other local resources. Similarly, the Center for Civic Engagement and Social Impact’s Benefits Hub is a new on-campus resource this year. Located on the ground floor of Commonwealth Hall, the Benefits Hub will help students apply for programs such as SNAP, Medicaid, FAFSA, etc. If anyone in Chester County needs shelter, they can call 211 or text their zip code to 898-211 for free help from a resource navigator. This information comes from Safe Harbor, an organization that provides food and beds, located within walking distance from campus. You may have heard their name before, as a lot of clubs on campus fundraise for them. 

    If you want to join clubs that are passionate about food insecurity, sustainability, or food waste, Veg Out holds different events on Thursdays, and their information is available on RamConnect. Students Against Food Insecurity is a group dedicated to fighting food insecurity and advocating for more inclusive dining options, such as vegan, halal, and kosher foods, on college campuses. They traveled to Harrisburg last semester to advocate for the Hunger Free Campus Bill. One of the bill’s aims is starting a Swipe Out Hunger program on college campuses, where leftover meal swipes can be donated to students in need. Because of the group’s efforts, the first ever Meal Swipe Drive at West Chester will take place the week before Thanksgiving. If you are interested in getting involved with Students Against Food Insecurity, you can email Joshua Filer at jf979304@wcupa.edu. 

    The Chester County Partnership to End Homelessness is hosting a panel discussion on campus titled “How We Live: Home, Opportunity & Our Wellbeing.” This panel will touch on how housing specifically effects college students’ success. Come out to the Sykes Theater, 3-4:30 PM, on Tuesday, November 15th to see it! You can find the panelists and more information here.

    Finally, CWGE is hosting a donation drive for North Star! The drive runs from now until the end of the semester. During our normal office hours (Monday-Friday, 9 AM-4 PM), you can drop off your donations of nonperishable goods and personal care products in our office, Lawrence 214, which is located on the second floor of the Lawrence Center. Outside of these hours, you can still leave your donations in a box outside of our office under our table with free condoms/other barriers. If you would like to confirm that your donation made it or have any other questions, please email our office at cwge@wcupa.edu. If you don’t know what to donate, Don Neimeitz, the Executive Director of North Star, provided me with a list of their preferred items. 

Nonperishables

• Cereal 

• Raisins; small boxes for children's lunches

• Granola bars

• Peanut butter

• Jelly

• Ketchup

• Mustard

• Vegetable oil for cooking

• Olive oil

• Pasta, all kinds

• Spaghetti sauce

• Mac and cheese

• Canned fruit, all kinds

• Canned tuna

• Canned Beefaroni, Spaghetti O's, Ravioli

• Soups, all kinds

• Canned veggies, all kinds

• Gift Card to Giant, Aldi or Acme

Personal Items

• Diapers, sizes infant and #1

• Baby wipes

• Toilet paper

• Paper towels

• Ziploc bags, sandwich size and 1 quart

• Aluminum foil

• Plastic wrap

• Hand sanitizer

• Lysol spray or wipes

• Bleach

• General purpose cleaning spray  

• Shampoo and conditioner

• Toothbrushes and toothpaste

• Garbage bags - for kitchens 13 gallons

• Dish soap

• Laundry detergent 

• Menstrual products (pads and tampons)

CWGE and North Star thank you in advance for any contribution you can make! If you can’t make a donation at this time, please share our drive with your communities and spread the word!

[A cream color and green fiber arts graphic]

Fiber Arts In Sum
By Lee Irvine (they/them)

Trigger warning: mention of domestic and racial violence 

The fiber arts are entangled in femme history, offering community, mobilization, and resources to historically marginalized folks. But like most history, the history surrounding fiber arts is divided along racial lines. White history is the story most often told regarding the fiber arts. However, the story is riddled with racism and fails to recognize the purpose that fiber arts served to Black women throughout American history. Knowing the history of fiber arts is not essential to begin your craft journey; however, it will help you appreciate where the art came from and may inspire you to take your journey a step further. 

Up until 1846, the fiber arts served a practical purpose to white women in American society. Women who were able to knit, crochet, or create anything from textile, could provide for their families by creating clothing and blankets. This changed in 1846 with Mademoiselle Riego de Blanchardier’s book Irish Lace Crochet, challenged the idea that fiber arts had to focus on utility (Loon, 2021). Irish lace crochet was accessible to upper-class white woman in America, since it built on skills that they already possessed. The final product was ornate, beautiful, and impractical. Therefore, rich white women reengaged with the fiber arts, as a means of creating art. On its surface, this all seems frivolous, however upper-class white women were using craft circles as a guise for political mobilization.  

Since gathering to chat was objectionable, being a white woman in early American society was generally very lonely (Cruea, 2005). By creating the appearance of getting work done, white women created a space where they could discuss scorned topics, like politics and their husbands (Loon, 2021). In these craft circles, women discussed how alcohol seemed to link to increased violence from their husbands, leading to a push for temperance. Additionally, white women organized the suffrage movement in these knitting circles. Yet, these white craft circles have always been entwined with racism. Like most feminist spaces around 1920, white knitting and craft circles excluded Black women. Knitting became integral to white women’s identity, almost every white woman knew how to knit. During the World Wars, white women met in weekly meetings to knit for active soldiers (Knitting Trends, 2014). In every knitting pattern I have looked at during my research, white women are pictured wearing the final product.  Racism continued into the 1960’s and 70’s, especially in the knitting community, as white women coined the phrase, “Black women cannot knit,” to exclude Black women from social groups built around knitting (Terry, 2019). As second wave feminism swept the nation, white women rejected the fiber arts as a symbol of domestic oppression. While second wave feminists turned to a contemporary definition of liberation, they left behind crafting and coined it as antiquated and unnecessary. 

Unlike white women, Black women used the fiber arts for means beyond utility. The fiber arts served as a means of survival. In their pursuit of liberating Black slaves, Black women running the Underground Railroad often used quilt work to create hidden maps, designed to help Black people navigate their way to the north to escape slavery (Terry, 2019). In 1864, Sojourner Truth taught Black women fleeing North how to knit and sew, as a means of empowering Black women with the ability to support their families after escaping slavery (Segal, 2017). After emancipation and into the present, the fiber arts serve Black women in political mobilization as well as mitigating minority stress. Minority stress as defined by the American Sociological Association, is stress experienced by minorities related to being a part of a socially disadvantaged group (Williams, 2017). During the Civil Rights Movement, crocheted articles of clothing signaled allyship with the Black Panthers; this rise in crocheting among Black women was a direct response to exclusion from white knitting circles. Additionally, members of the Black Panthers dedicated themselves to community aid through crocheting clothing and blankets for Black community members (Terry, 2019). Regarding minority stress, engaging in the fiber arts releases serotonin and reduces the stress hormone, cortisol, within the blood (Houtman, 2017). Aside from physiological benefits of the fiber arts, the presence of craft circles allowed for Black women to commiserate about shared experiences of racism and sexism, while simultaneously creating a space for Black joy (Segal, 2017).  

Presently, groups like The Yarn Mission set out to give Black femmes a voice, while also establishing community aid. The Yarn Mission was established in 2014 by a young woman named Taylor Payne who was living just a mile away from where Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager, was killed by a police officer. Michael Brown’s murder led to five days of peaceful protest throughout Ferguson, Missouri which were met with further police violence. Through The Yarn Mission, Payne sought to give her community a voice to discuss the trauma attached to being Black in America, using the fiber arts as their medium. Since its establishment, The Yarn Mission has grown beyond a craft circle, and flourished into a community aid effort to benefit people of color living in St. Louis, Missouri (Segal, 2017). Evidently, the fiber arts are woven into Black history and continue to play a role in Black liberation. 

Since the COVID-19 pandemic first started in January of 2020, crafts like crocheting and knitting have begun to rise in popularity. Fiber arts regaining prevalence is accredited to the free time gained during the various lockdowns, as well as the aforementioned stress reduction benefits (Loon, 2021). Due to the nature of the pandemic, people are enjoying the fiber arts on their own, and craft circles are no longer as prevalent as they once were. 

Given your level of comfort with COVID-19, there are a few crafting circles present on West Chester University’s campus. The Center for Trans and Queer Advocacy offers a craft circle from 3pm-4pm on Wednesdays called Tight Knit. If that time or space does not serve you, the Stitched Together club meets at 5:30pm on most Mondays. If you don’t know any skills related to the fiber arts, both groups offer a space for newcomers to learn. You can see both groups listed on RamConnect with further details. However, if meeting in person is daunting for any number of reasons, you could always make your own virtual crafts circle with friends, to celebrate and learn the arts while maintain meaningful connections. While I believe the fiber arts and the communities can be enjoyed by anyone, I implore white allies to consider what kinds of circle they may be joining. First, predominately white spaces must consider the racist history tied to white knitting circles. Second, white allies seeking to join communities must honors circles that are closed to Black people and people of color. I will leave you with this: picking up a craft or learning a fiber arts skill can help you find peace, connect you with others, and will ultimately leave you with a final product that you made. 

References 

Cherry. (2014, September 25). Knitting trends of the 1940s. Chronica.  https://www.chronicallyvintage.com/2014/09/knitting-trends-of-1940s.html 

Cruea, S. M. (2005, September). Changing Ideals of Womanhood During the Nineteenth-Century Woman Movement. Bowling Green State University. https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=gsw_pub  

Loon, C. (2022, October 19). Commentary: Crochet's evolving relationship to femininity. The California Aggie. Retrieved from https://theaggie.org/2022/03/09/com mentary-crochets-evolving-relationship-to-femininity/ 

Houtman, B. (2022, October 11). How Crochet and Knitting Help the Brain. Anxiety Resource Center. https://www.anxietyresourcecenter.org/2017/10/crochet-helps-brain/#:~:text=Hormone%20level,learning%20new%20skills%20and%20movements. 

Segal, C. (2017, April 23). Stitch by stitch, a brief history of knitting and activism. PBS.2022, from https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/stitch-stitch-history-knitting-activism  

Terry, R. (2019, September 25). Black People Were the Original "Craftivists." ZORA. Retrieved from https://zora.medium.com/icymi-bipoc-are-the-original-diy-craftivists-5ce6ae19742e  

Williams, D. R. (n.d.). Stress and the Mental Health of Populations of Color: Advancing OurUnderstanding of Race-related Stressors. American Sociological Association.  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0022146518814251 

[Teal Gender Justice Conference graphic with light purple text and illustration of people of a diverse array of race, gender, and physical ability carrying protest signs and gathering in solidarity.]

Call for Committee Members: 
Third Annual Gender Justice Conference

The Center for Women & Gender Equity would like to invite you to partner in the planning of our Third Annual Gender Justice Conference (tentatively scheduled to be held on March 29th, 2023). 

We intentionally plan to host this conference at the end of Women’s History Month and just before the start of Sexual Assault Awareness Month in the hopes of unifying our office’s goals of addressing gender-based oppression and centering joy and liberation for all. In 2021, the First Annual Gender Justice Conference was thematically organized around the groundbreaking research published in Sexual Citizens by Dr. Jennifer S. Hirsch and Dr. Shamus Khan, which examined the ways that identity and power influenced the sexual lives and vulnerabilities to harm of college students. In 2022, the Second Annual Gender Justice Conference was crafted around concepts of self-authorship and narrative building as social change work and featured a talk from New York Times Bestselling Author Chloe Gong and a keynote from Ericka Hart (pronouns: she/they), a black queer femme activist, writer, highly acclaimed speaker, and award-winning sexuality educator on the concept of radical sex positivity. 

This year we would like to build on the learning we embarked on with our previous two conferences and imagine what it means to engage in social change work while continuing to manage the consequences of COVID-19, mounting systemic inequities, and legislative challenges to bodily autonomy. Our hope for the 2023 conference is to continue to examine the ways that all oppressions are intrinsically linked and work to co-create an environment where transformative justice is possible, where everyone’s safety is secured, and where everyone finds a space of connection and belonging.  

We are seeking engaged campus partners to serve on our planning committee for the Third Annual Gender Justice Conference to help craft a specific vision for our conference’s themes utilizing critical and intersectional frameworks and to make decisions on the operational and logistical elements of hosting a conference in these ambiguous times. If you are interested in joining our committee, please contact Mx. Tess Benser (they/them/theirs), Assistant Director of Outreach & Engagement of the Center for Women & Gender Equity at tbenser@wcupa.edu. Thanks!