Gwen Williams Prize 2016–2017 Recipients

WGS-POLS Program Development and Two Publications

Dr. Alicia Giralt, Foreign Languages
Dr. Stephanie Wolfe, Political Science

Project #1

Purpose of Project: The project was proposed to further develop and strengthen the Women and Gender Studies internship/research component.

Project Outcomes: Dr. Giralt met with multiple NGOs to discuss their activities within Rwanda. She conducting several site visits and spent time with local NGO leaders to determine how Women and Gender Studies could best fit into the organizations and what locations would be best-suited for our students. She identified a handful of locations that we should focus on in placing students.

Evaluation & Dissemination Outcomes: Several locations were determined to be the best fit. This summer (June/July 2017), we will place our first WGS student at one of these locations. She will spend 5 weeks working as an intern within Rwanda for credit. She will then be requested to give a presentation to other WGS students in the program about her experiences abroad.

Project #2

Purpose of Project: We were going to develop an article about internships abroad for Marine Corps University Press; however, this article was not developed due to medical leave of one of the participants. If this article comes to fruition, an update will be sent.

Project Outcomes: Instead of the above article, Dr. Wolfe was requested by the organizers of the State Sponsored Histories conference (University of Ghent conference held in Nov. 2015) to update her presentation for an inclusion in a book on the same topic. Dr. Wolfe thus collected more research on the topic of Rwandan memorials while in the country.

Evaluation & Dissemination Outcomes: The chapter, Memorials and Commemoration Projects as an Expression of State Sponsored Narratives in the Rwandan Context, was submitted for publication in September 2016. It has been accepted, pending revisions in February, 2017. Publication is estimated for late 2017.

Project #3

Purpose of Project: Participants will conduct interviews with Rwandan genocide survivors in order to strengthen a chapter which has already been submitted for publication. We conducted interviews with survivors in Utah, New York City and Washington D.C. A peer reviewer requested that we add additional interviews with survivors who still reside within Rwanda. Project participants: Stephanie Wolfe, Alicia Giralt and Ashlee Cawley.

Project Outcomes: Three more additional survivors were interviewed within Rwanda, and various memorial sites were visited. 

Evaluation & Dissemination Outcomes: In the Shadow of Genocide, the co-edited anthology; and Memory, Justice, and Transformation, the co-written book chapter, were submitted in September 2016 for publication.