[166] President's Commission Funds New Curricula About Women

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Oct. 28, 2009
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Gina Logue, 615-898-5081

PRESIDENT’S COMMISSION FUNDS NEW CURRICULA ABOUT WOMEN
Courses Examine Women in Work, Family, Social Media and Correctional Facilities

(MURFREESBORO) – The President’s Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW) at MTSU is offering three grants of $1,800 each to faculty members who want to integrate the experiences and perspectives of women into the curriculum.
The grants are intended for use in the summer of 2010 for the revision of a course, the revision of a general education course for a study abroad program, the creation of a new course, the reconceptualization of a current minor, or the creation of a new minor.
Among the 2009 winners is Dr. Gretchen Webber, assistant professor of sociology, for her new upper division undergraduate course “Gender, Work and Family in the 21st Century.”
“Gender, race/ethnicity and class significantly shape women’s and men’s experiences in both the workplace and the family,” says Webber. “This course takes an integrative approach to two key institutions, work and family, that have enormous influence on nearly all people.”
Using the Sloan Work and Family Research Network to access current issues in work-family scholarship in conjunction with sociological texts, Webber says her goal will be “to motivate students to make connections between knowledge and its application to their lives, particularly as workers and family members.”
Webber’s course, which will be taught in spring 2010, will be open to all students who have completed Sociology 1010 or 2010.
Another 2009 grant winner, Dr. Meredith Huey Dye, assistant professor of sociology, developed a spring 2010 special topics course titled “Women in Prison.”
“Although the course will focus primarily on the experiences of women as inmates and as workers, it will also cover the collateral consequences of imprisonment for women in general (i.e., the effect of incarceration on women as daughters, mothers and spouses/significant others,” says Dye.
She says the bulk of the course will examine special issues of women in prison, including drug use and treatment, physical and mental health, mothering, aging and dying, as well as education, vocation and reentry. A tour of the Tennessee Prison for Women in Nashville is one important feature of the course.
The third 2009 grant recipient, Dr. Tricia Farwell, assistant professor of journalism, created a Journalism 4800 course titled “Advertising and Social Media.”

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Farwell says this undergraduate course, which is being taught this semester, began as a look at how advertisers incorporate social media into campaigns and began as a response to employers’ request that students know how to use social media strategically. She revised the course to explore how women and marginalized groups are using the internet to communicate with advertisers and how social media are used to build gendered communities.
Tenured or tenure-track faculty members are eligible to apply for the 2010 PCSW grants. Each proposal should include a completed grant application form; a brief description of the project; a statement of goals and objectives; a timeline for completion and implementation of the project; a tentative bibliography, including materials on the theories and methods of curriculum integration; and curriculum vitae.
Applicants who wish to revise courses or minors should also state how their course or minor would change as a result of the revisions. Priority will be given to courses that can be implemented within two years and those that are developed or revised for the undergraduate curriculum.
The deadline for submission of grant applications is Jan. 19, 2010. Applicants should send seven proposals (the original and six copies) to Dr. Samantha Cantrell, Office of Research Services, P.O. Box 124. Selected members of the PCSW’s Academic Issues Subcommittee will make the final decisions.
To submit an application, go to www.mtsu.edu/pcsw/grants.shtml. For more information, contact Cantrell at 615-494-8751 or scantrel@mtsu.edu.


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With three Nobel Prize winners among its alumni and former faculty, Middle Tennessee State University confers master’s degrees in 10 areas, the Specialist in Education degree, the Doctor of Arts degree and the Doctor of Philosophy degree. MTSU is ranked among the top 100 public universities in the nation in the Forbes “America’s Best Colleges” 2009 survey.