Hello, Rams!

During the summer, the students leave and campus settles into a slightly slower pace, but things really started to pick up for the Women & Gender Collaborative. Now, with the arrival of fall, you can take full advantage of the fruit of that labor.

Welcome to our new website!

One of the major summer projects was to design and build a website that can deliver compelling and useful content to our campus community. Here are some key features to explore:

Education – Increasing education for everyone around gender-related issues is a top priority for this initiative. We’ve curated a collection of articles on a wide range of topics, including Gender in the Workplace, Trans Identities and the Gender Spectrum, Resources for Men, and How to be a Bystander and Ally. We hope the Educate Yourself section will provide helpful and accessible resources for individuals to independently learn more about gender as it shows up in every aspect of our lives. We also hope that others will share the articles and use them to start candid conversations – whether that is among a small group of friends or as an agenda item in every staff meeting. (You can also get even more exposure to articles, current events, and programs by following us on Facebook!)

Engagement – Another goal of the Women & Gender Collaborative is to increase engagement across campus with programs that focus on women and gender. You can find programs and events under What’s Happening. You can learn more about what others are doing – individually, informally, or as a campus unit – to contribute to the collective effort to make CSU the best place for women to work and learn. Hopefully, you’ll feel inspired to start your own initiative or program (when you do, let us know! We’re happy to consult with you as your develop your program). We’re also excited to highlight SOURCE stories about the research, initiatives, and accomplishments from women across campus.

Core Collaborators – The Women & Gender Collaborative is working closely with six other campus units that are also dedicated to improving the culture and climate at CSU around women and gender. We share the same goals, but each entity has a distinct role, area of focus, and unique contribution to campus. It can get a little confusing at times to know who’s doing what on these issues, so there’s a special section dedicated to recognizing each of the Core Collaborators.

The second major summer project was getting the Women & Gender Collaborative’s Grant Program underway. Our call for proposals for two-year projects was met with many innovative, creative, and compelling submissions. Late in the summer, a small committee selected five projects that will receive seed funding and supported from the Collaborative as they develop over the next two years. We asked for projects that shared our mission of increasing education and engagement around gender among diverse audiences and prioritized those proposals that paid special attention to how gender intersects with other salient aspects of our identities. You can read more about the funded projects here or in this SOURCE story.

As we continue into this academic year, I’m encouraged by the interest and enthusiasm I’ve seen from so many people across campus around how to make CSU the best place for women to work and learn. It takes concerted effort to make big changes, and when it comes to changing a culture, it also requires participation and everyday commitments from all of us to take the initiative to do better and get involved. I think President Frank’s message in his most recent Fall Address is germane to the collection of campus efforts that exist to support women and create a gender inclusive environment, especially when he said, “I hope you’re proud of your university – not satisfied. Not thinking we do everything perfectly, but proud of our direction, our effort, our action. I hope you’re proud because you – the sum of your actions – are CSU.”

Thanks for your continued commitment and support of these efforts across campus!

Cheers,

Cori

P.S. In case you missed CSU Inspire at the 2016 Diversity Symposium, you can learn some basics about the Women & Gender Collaborative in this 8-minute video (continue watching to hear about other social justice oriented research and campus initiatives, too!).