Dr. Celeste Montoya, associate professor of WGST and Director of the Miramontes Arts & Sciences Program, is one of the three recipients of this year's Â鶹ӰԺ Faculty Assembly's Excellence in Leadership & Service Award. The BFA presents this award annually to faculty nominated for their outstanding work and effort to make advances in the academy, and include a financial prize provided by the Chancellor. This award acknowledges the impact of service outside of the faculty's teaching and research duties, including their contributions to national conferences and workshops, committee work, and student advising which is above and beyond expectations.

Dr. Montoya’s nomination focused on three separate achievements that have both greatly impacted our campus community and contributed to national scholarship – her ongoing revitalization of the Miramontes Arts and Sciences Program (MASP), her central role in drafting both the College of Arts & Sciences diversity requirements and the University’s Inclusion, Diversity, and Excellence in Academics (IDEA) plan, and her ongoing commitment to diversity and service to the university, profession and community.

"Professor Montoya, re-staffed and re-built the curriculum and support system for MASP students and now, years later, MASP is not only thriving but it is one of the most successful programs for underrepresented students on the campus." - Dr. Janet Jacobs

Since 2015, Dr. Montoya has been the Director of MASP, an essential support program for traditionally underrepresented and first-generation college students at CU Â鶹ӰԺ. She has since overhauled the MASP curriculum, focusing on student recruitment and retention and creating new initiatives including a summer bridge program for incoming students and a mid-year academic program for more advanced and transfer students. MASP’s Assistant Directors, Dr. Karen Ramirez and Dr. Kate Semsar, write that “Dr. Montoya is a rare and much-needed leader at the university who serves with a combination of intention, clear communication, passion and deep-seated humanity." Dr. Robert Buffington notes that Dr. Montoya’s commitment to student success “has made CU Â鶹ӰԺ a much more welcoming and inclusive place for an ‘at risk’ student population.â€�

"As one of the principal architects of CU’s inclusive excellence campaign, Professor Montoya would be a worthy recipient of the BFA’s Excellence in Leadership and Service Award on the basis of this committee work alone. Her contributions, however, extend far beyond administrative work and service on policy-making committees." - Dr. Robert Buffington

Considered to be one of the least glamorous and least appreciated roles of academic, Dr. Montoya has not shied away from committee work. She has been involved in reviewing and revising the core curriculum for the College of Arts and Sciences, drafted the College’s new diversity core requirements, produced and revised the campus’s Inclusion, Diversity, and Equality Plan, and worked to create CU’s inclusive excellence campaign. Her work has greatly contributed to the promotion of diversity and inclusion on campus, and she has shown both commitment and courage in achieving these goals. “She views her service contributions as an important way of addressing issues of social justice within academic institutions, and this view has sustained her important work," writes Dr. Lorraine Bayard de Volo. “She is an excellent example of civic-mindedness, a team player who has sacrificed to build community with an eye to building a better world.�

Dr. Montoya’s commitment to student success has been recognized several times before, including two Women Who Make a Difference Awards (2013, 2016), the Best Should Teach award (2017), and the Craig Brians Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research and Mentorship (2019). "It is clear that Dr. Montoya cares deeply about the students, not only providing them with traditional tools to successfully navigate college, but also supporting the fostering of their community and a network of support between them," writes Christina Sue, a professor in Sociology. Students also contributed letters of support for Dr. Montoya’s nomination, writing of the guidance and encouragement they receive from her academically and personally. "I can sincerely say no one (including myself) has believed in me as much as Dr. Montoya believes in me. She consistently shows me that I am capable of doing anything I set my mind to, and then sets me up with the resources to achieve whatever goal I set for myself—without failure," writes Mariana Galvez Seminario, a MASP student and WGST major. Dr. Montoya also regularly contributes to faculty success by organizing and presenting at pedagogy workshops, serving on campus advisory boards, and at a national and regional level has provided crucial professional support for female and LatinX faculty through the American Political Science Association and the Western Political Science Association.

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Celeste Montoya in receiving the Â鶹ӰԺ Faculty Assembly Excellence Award!

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Faculty, students and staff gathered in the Cottage library to honor the large donation of books and journals by Dr. Matthew Brown, an instructor in Sociology and the Honors Program, who passed away last November from complications of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease).  Dr. Brown first arrived in Â鶹ӰԺ in the mid-90s as a PhD student in Sociology, and continued on as an instructor after receiving his PhD in 2003. He taught several courses that were cross-listed with WGST and LGBTQ Studies, including The Social Construction of Sexuality, he participated in the development of the LGBTQ Studies Certificate, and helped organize the TRANSforming Gender conference for nearly a decade.

Dr. Brown was an avid reader, and before his passing he had arranged for many of his books to have a new home here in the Cottage library – his donation has increased and updated our holdings greatly, including many books on sexuality, race, LGBTQ Studies, gender, history, art, law, and queer fiction. Students have already benefitted from our new collection, including those in Dr. Soares’ Queer Theory class, many of whom used Dr. Brown’s materials as part of their research project. One student in the course wrote of Dr. Brown, “he has been one of my favorite professors at CU. I loved his teaching style and admired him as a person, so I was immediately excited to explore his collection upon finding out it could be used for this assignment. He was always able to “queer� the class with his language, sense of humor, and assignments, always working to stray from the “norm� and keep us interested and excited.�

Another WGST student who had benefitted from Dr. Brown's mentorship wrote of the impact this had made in their life: “I miss him, and I miss having a queer sociology professor to teach methodologies and allow me to learn from other queer people how best to create queer reparative research. I knew I was queer for so long before I met him, and still he was the first queer adult who would let me say that sex matters, and he even said the same- my high school teachers obviously could not for legal reasons, and the queer support networks near me all represented themselves as being 'GLBT,' which was a word I understood to mean that I was not actually welcome there and that they would not engage in any difficult conversations.�

Dr. Brown’s legacy also lives on with the creation of a scholarship fund in his name, the , which will provide support for graduate students in Sociology who have demonstrated a commitment to making a positive social impact through teaching, and who have faced unusual adversity or are from backgrounds that are historically underrepresented in Sociology.

Dr. Matthew C. Brown

Matthew C. Brown Memorial Scholarship Fund

This fund will support scholarships for Sociology graduate students with demonstrated commitment to making a positive social impact through teaching and who have faced unusual adversity and/or are from backgrounds that are historically underrepresented in Sociology.

Dr. Brown's colleagues created memorial programs in his honor, and displayed a slide show of his images.

All of the over 200 books and journals donated from Dr. Brown's collection carry this inscription.

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Since 2000, the Women Who Make a Difference award has recognized women who have impacted our community by serving as teachers, mentors, mothers and advocates. Originally given by the Women's Resource Center, this tradition is now continued by the Center for Inclusion and Social Change.

WGST is proud to introduce two special recipients of the Women Who Make a Difference award for 2019: Sophia Surage and Olivia Gardner.

Sophia Surage

Sophia is a program coordinator at the CU Volunteer Resource Center (VRC), where she specializes in events and community partnerships. She is also a CU Â鶹ӰԺ alumna, graduating in 2014 with degrees in ethnic studies and women and gender studies. During her time as a student at CU, Sophia was the recipient of the Jean Dubofsky Scholarship in Women and Gender Studies, a very active member of the Gender Justice League, and was chosen by her peers to give a student commencement speech during our departmental graduation ceremony.

Sophia was nominated for the Women Who Make a Difference Award alongside her coworkers at the VRC, who were commended for being "a bedrock of the Volunteer Resource Center". The nominator went on to say that "watching them support students, take on challenges, and build a great atmosphere in the center has been incredible. They are setting such a positive example for our students to follow.â€� The VRC began at CU Â鶹ӰԺ in 1965, to help connect students with volunteer programs, and to  develop socially responsible student leaders who understand, advocate for, and provide services to meet campus and community needs.

"I’m grateful for my supervisor and CISC for the opportunity to be recognized through Women Who Make a Difference 2020," writes Sophia. "I nominated womxn professors for this award when I was a student at CU Â鶹ӰԺ and it is very special to be recognized now as a CU Â鶹ӰԺ Staff member. Thank you to this program for celebrating womxn whose work and impact might otherwise go unrecognized."

Olivia Gardner

Olivia is a senior at CU Â鶹ӰԺ, double-majoring in ethnic studies and women and gender studies, and also a student in the INVST program. Olivia has been active across campus, including working in the Center for Inclusion and Social Change and the CU DIalogues program, and is the current CUSG Director of Diversity and Inclusion. In her current role, she has played a large part in working with campus administration to improve campus anti-racism policies, resources and training for the campus community.

Olivia's nominator shared their praise in their nomination letter: “As an INVST student, a co-founder of Transformative Teach, an organization dedicated to creating more racial justice and economic justice in public schools, as a Black Student Alliance member and a CUSG officer who leads on diversity and inclusion campaigns on and off-campus, Olivia is MY role model. (And I am about 20 years her senior).�

Read more at: /today/2020/01/13/recognizing-women-who-make-difference

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Loretta Ross, founder of Reproductive Justice, with Mariana Galvez Seminario

Mariana Galvez Seminario with Dr. Celeste Montoya at a COLOR conference

WGST student Mariana Galvez Seminario led a discussion and workshop on the origins, history, theory, and contemporary applications of reproductive justice in the Cottage library on Thursday, February 27th. Mariana is a junior double-majoring in women and gender studies and sociology, with a minor in political science, and is also an active member of the Gender Justice League, our WGST student practicum group.

Mariana was volunteering with a campus organization working to destigmatize abortion care when they crossed paths with members from the , "a community-rooted organization that works to enable Latinx individuals and their families to lead safe, healthy and self-determined lives." Mariana shares that upon finding COLOR, " I immediately fell in love with their mission and with the team. I felt that I found a family and found the work I wanted to do in my life. Ever since then, I have done whatever I can to work for the needs of my community–especially regarding the reproductive lives of women of color and QTPOC."

Mariana's work with COLOR has included assisting with canvassing and fundraising projects, being a member of the COLORado #1in3 Youth Council, and working as a policy intern during the 2019 legislative session. Mariana also contributed to the conversation on abortion access and its stigma in the Latinx community as a guest speaker on the Spanish-language radio program . They were chosen to represent COLOR at the SisterSong's "Let's Talk Â鶹ӰԺ Sex" conference in October, where they were highly inspired after spending time together with Loretta Ross, the founder of SisterSong who originally coined the term 'reproductive justice'.

Mariana has been invited to present their talk "Reproductive Justice and Racial Disparities in Reproductive Healthcare and Abortion Care" at the Colorado Doula Project's semi-annual training in Denver, which helps teach abortion doulas more about supporting patients through abortion, while also discussing health disparities and reproductive justice. This summer, they have been accepted into the highly competitive 2020 Ralph Bunche Summer Institute, a 5-week academically intensive summer program at Duke University sponsored by the American Political Science Association and designed to introduce undergraduate students from under-represented racial and ethnic groups to the world of doctoral study in political science.

What is Reproductive Justice?

SisterSong defines Reproductive Justice as the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.

Reproductive Justice was coined in 1994 by a group of black women gathered in Chicago who recognized that the women’s rights movement, led by and representing middle class and wealthy white women, could not defend the needs of women of color and other marginalized women and trans* people. They begain their own national movement to uplift the needs of the most marginalized women, families, and communities, and named themselves Women of African Descent for Reproductive Justice. Rooted in the internationally-accepted human rights framework created by the United Nations, Reproductive Justice combines reproductive rights and social justice. In 1997, SisterSong was formed to create a national, multi-ethnic RJ movement.

Learn more about SisterSong and Reproductive Justice at https://www.sistersong.net/reproductive-justice

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“Family Planning is a Christian Duty":  Religion, Population Control, and the Pill in the 1960s
Thursday, February 20, 2020   
Dr. Samira Mehta led a discussion of her chapter “'Family Planning is a Christian Duty':  Religion, Population Control, and the Pill in the 1960s,â€� included in the book Devotions and Desires: Histories of Sexuality and Religion in the 20^th Century United States (Eds. Gillian Frank, Bethany Moreton, and Heather White; Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018).

Leadership Education for Advancement and Promotion (LEAP) Women Faculty Reading Group is committed to the advancement and professional development of women faculty on the Â鶹ӰԺ campus.  They sponsor four women’s faculty lunches each year, to which all women faculty are invited.  These informal get-togethers are a great opportunity to meet new colleagues from across the campus, to discuss matters important to their careers, and to build social and professional networks.

From Suffrage to Shelby: An Intersectional Analysis of Voting Rights in the United States
Thursday, February 13, 2020

Dr. Celeste Montoya examined the historical intersections of race and gender within the Women’s Suffrage Movement and Civil Rights Movement and discussed the contemporary attacks on voting rights, at this event presented by CommRAP.

TV with a Prof:  â€œPoseâ€�
Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Dr. Kristie Soares led this discussion on the series Pose for the Honors Program at CU Â鶹ӰԺ.

Dr. Celeste Montoya discussed her predictions for Colorado's Super Tuesday results in as part of Expert Outlooks: Super Tuesday, published by the Center for American Women and Politics. She was also interviewed for several recent articles regarding Colorado politics and elections:

• Patch.com:
• Denver Post: 
• National Public Radio: 

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We are excited to offer these two exciting new topics courses this fall semester, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. A list of all our Fall courses is available at www.colorado.edu/wgst/courses/fall2020.

Gender, Justice, Food

What we eat is one of the most basic ways that we demonstrate who we are and what we value. This class thinks about the relationship of food to our rituals and our identities, and will examine how those values intersect with our understanding of food justice, including environmental concerns, food insecurity, labor issues, and animal rights. Focusing on Jews, Christians, feminists, vegans, vegetarians, and other groups in our contemporary context, we will think about how these concerns intersect with gender: how is the production of food gendered? How does gender shape our food identities? And how does gender intersect with the many systems and justice issues that shape and plague our access to food?

Gender and Violence: Bedroom/Boardroom/Battlefield

WGST 6290-001 • Special Topics in Gender and Sexuality Studies
Dr. Lorraine Bayard de Volo

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