Affiliate Faculty

The Women Studies Program was established in 1977.

In the Fall of 1978, Sue Armitage was half-time Director of Women's Studies and half-time in History.

José Alamillo
Assistant Professor, Comparative Ethnic Studies

Research and teaching interests:
Research focuses on race, gender, labor, leisure, and sport among 20th Century Mexican Americans in Southern California and the American West. Research areas include: Chicano/a Studies: Ethnic Studies, and U.S. Labor and Working Class Studies, Race, Gender and Sport.

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 255: Chicano/a History

Sue Armitage
Professor, History
Claudius O. and Mary W. Johnson Distinguished Professor of History

Graduate Faculty, American Studies

Research and teaching interests:
Teaching U.S. Women's history and graduate courses in American historiography and social history.

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 200: Introduction to Women's Studie: Gender and Power
WSt 298: History of Women in American Society
WSt 398: History of Women in the American West

Shila Baksi
Assistant Professor, Anthropology
Graduate Faculty, American Studies

Research and teaching interests:
language and culture, culture change, gender and morphology.

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 316: Gender in Cross cultural Perspective

Irenee Beattie
Assistant Professor, Sociology

Research and teaching interests:
Education, Racial/Ethnic and Gender Inequality, Adolescence, Law. I am especially interested in how adolescent social contexts (schools, families, neighborhoods) intersect with gender, race, and class to shape young adult experiences with such outcomes as parenthood, work, education, and poverty. One current project examines whether "unrealistic" educational and occupational expectations are associated with racial/ethnic differences in young women's risk of teen motherhood. Another area of inquiry considers how high school coursework shapes young women's pathways to welfare receipt. I am also developing a project that examines how school discipline reinforces gender norms, and how student-initiated court challenges to disciplinary actions have altered this relationship over time. I am currently conducting research, funded by the American Educational Research Association, which examines why boys in high poverty schools have such low educational expectations and attainment when compared to girls.

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 351: Sociology of the Family
WSt 384: Sociology of Gender

Joan Burbick
Professor, English

Research and teaching interests:
Theories of gender, nation, and culture; American literatures and cultures; and Transpacific cultures. Research on political culture of gun ownership in the United States

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 409: Women Writers in the American West

Sheila Kearney Converse
Instructor, School of Music & Theatre Arts

Research and teaching interests:
Teaches "Women and Music", a course exploring how gender is reflected in texts of popular, jazz and country music for Music and Women's Studies. For Honors, teaches an interdisciplinary course entitled "Music and Society" which explores the four historical periods of music and the society which formed them. Also for Honors "Heroes and Rings" which using Joseph Campbell's Hero With a Thousand Faces as a template explores The Lord of the Rings and Wagner's Der Ring das Niebelungen. For Music, teaches Vocal pedagogy and Studio Voice

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 363: Women and Music

Sandy Cooper
Associate Professor, Math

Research and teaching interests:
Rational Approximation, Continued Fractions Current Emphasis: Pade' approximations, Laurent polynomials

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 220: Women, Science, & Culture

Maria Cuevas
Adjunct Professor, Women's Studies

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 300: Intersections of Race, Class, Gender, & Sexuality WSt 332: Global Feminisms
WSt 384: Sociology of Gender

Lisa Guerrero
Assistant Professor, Comparative Ethnic Studies

Research and teaching interests:
African American Literary Traditions, African American History, African American Masculinity, African American Cultural Movements, Comparative Ethnic Studies, Cultural Studies, American Popular Culture, Ethnic American Literatures, Gender and Sexuality, Literatures and Theories of African Diaspora, 19th and 20th Century Histories of People of Color in the Unitied States.

Tamara Helm
Adjunct Faculty, Fine Arts

Research and teaching interests:
For over two decades, I have been working figuratively using the imagery of dolls. Since dolls are figurative but not human, they represent humanity in an abstract way (as effigies, statues, and pretend-figures). I am endeavoring to "freeze" dolls in attitudes and gestures that speak of what it is to be human. Using the doll as metaphor, I have purposely chosen to give them distance and "removal" to suggest humanness. Recently I have been painting "personae" (mainly heads and faces) of famous, "infamous", and ordinary people.

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 308: Women artists I, Middle Ages-18th Century
WSt 310: Women Artists II, 19th-20th Century

Melynda Huskey
Assistant Vice President for Research, Assessment, and Initiatives, Equity and Diversity

Research and teaching interests
19th-century British popular fiction, children's literature, queer theory

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 309: Women Writers
WSt 485: Theoretical Issues of Lesbian and Gay Studies

Bernadette H. Hyner
Assistant Professor, Foreign Languages and Cultures

Research and teaching interests:
During her academic career, Dr. Bernadette H. Hyner has studied and conducted research abroad on travelogues and pedagogical literature (fairy tales) authored by eighteenth and nineteenth-century German-speaking women. Many of these narratives were influenced by literary movements such as Romanticism and Sensibility (Empfindsamkeit) and address issues of gendered experience and language. Dr. Hyner built on her interest in perspectives on gendered quests for autonomy in that she published articles on authors such as Sophie von La Roche, Eleonore Thon, Gotthold E. Lessing, and Gisela von Arnim. She currently compiles close readings on tales authored by Marie von Olfers and Benedikte Naubert. In addition to her interest in gendered experience, Dr. Hyner is the DFLC's oral proficincy trainer (ACTFL certified) and a member of the CLA program assessment team.

Carol S. Ivory
Chair, Fine Arts

Research and teaching interests:
Art, history, and culture of the Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia

Monica Kirkpatrick Johnson
Assistant Professor, Sociology

Research and teaching interests:
Life Course, Adolescence and the Transition to Adulthood, Work and Family, Education, Social Psychology, Gender.

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 351: Sociology of Family

Julie Kmec
Assistant Professor, Sociology

Research and teaching interests:
Social Stratification, Sociology of Work, Organizations, Gender and Race Inequality

Carmen Lugo-Lugo
Assistant Professor, Comparative Ethnic Studies

Research and teaching interests:
My research and teaching interests are interdisciplinary in nature and focus primarily on issues involving Puerto Rican and Latina/o Studies; Latina Feminism in US; popular culture and issues of race and gender; literature and issues of race/ethnicity and gender; feminist theory; colonialsim/imperialism; and race relations.

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 300: Intersections of Race, Class, Gender and Sexualities
WSt 454: La Chicana in US Society

Faith Lutze
Associate Professor and Director of the Criminal Justice Progrm
Graduate Faculty, American Studies

Research and teaching interests:
Juvenile, Adult, and Family Treatment Drug Courts. Gender and Justice in the correction of offenders.

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 403: Violence Towards Women

Jeannette Mageo
Associate Professor, Anthropology

Research and teaching interests:
Gender, self, South Pacific, spirits, transvestism, cultural memory and identity, power, and dreams.

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 316: Gender in Cross Cultural Perspectives

Amy Mazur
Associate Professor, Political Science
Graduate Faculty, American Studies

Research and teaching interests:
Teach undergraduate and graduate courses in Comparative Politics, Comparative Public Policy, and Gender and Politics

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 305: Gender & Politics

Nancy McKee
Assistant Professor, Anthropology

Research and teaching interests:
Examines working-class women and higher education. Her research interests include ethnicity, education, language and culture, culture and inequality, and gender.

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 316: Gender in Cross Cultural Perspectives

Laurie Mercier
Associate Professor, History, WSU-Vancouver

Research and teaching interests:
Mondern America, immigration, worker in North America, American social movements, Pacific Nothwest 1970s feminist movement, women's oral narratives, and the intersections of race, gender, region and class in the Pacific Northwest

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 421: The Frontier and American West

Kathy Meyer
Senior Instructor, History

Research and teaching interests:
My research area is Early Imperial Roman history, with an emphasis on women (especially Julio-Claudian women). In particular, I am an expert on Agrippina the Younger and her fondness for mushrooms.

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 337: Women in the Ancient World

Stacia Moffett
Associate Professor, School of Biological Sciences

Research and teaching interests:
Research is on physiology of mosquitoes that are disease vectors - we hope that basic research will yield ecologically safe control measures. Teaching inludes Biology of Women and Cell Physiology, as well as a graduate course in Development and Regeneration in the Nervous System. I advise pre-Physical Therapy majors and supervise their Internships.

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 407: Biology of Women

Pavithra Narayanan
Assistant Professor, English, WSU-Vancouver

Research and teaching interests:
Postcolonial Literature; Documentary Film & Production, and Global Feminism. Her research is on gender, globalization and political economy, with a focus on India. Her doctoral dissertation was one of the early investigations in the field of Australian and Canadian Studies. She is working on a book that examines the interconnectedness of literacy, literature, language, gender, economics, and caste within a globalization discourse. Her lats film entitled "India and Free Trade: A Closer Look at Bhopal," looks at the implications of free trade and the changes brought about by transnational corporations in India

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 309: Women Writers
WSt 332: Global Feminisms

Cassandra Nichols
Psychologist, Coordinator: Direct Services, Counseling and Testing Services

Research and teaching interests:
Areas of Special Interest/Current Professional Activities: Religion and spirituality as a multicultural issue in counseling. Panel discussion for the Annual Conference for the Association for Women in Psychology in Baltimore, M.D.

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 391: Women & Health (Summer Session
WSt 324: Psychology of Women

Serena Peters
Adjunct Faculty, Women's Studies

Research and teaching interests: US Latin American relations, globalization, the war on terror, militarism, comparative fascism.

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 200: Gender and Power: Introductiont to Women's Studies
WSt 216: American Culture
WSt 410: Internships

Maggie Reed
Instructor, International Business Institute

Research and teaching interests:
The impact of culture on business. International business as an agent of culture change. Gender constructs and women in business. Business history.

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 315: Women in Management and Leadership and

Camille Roman
Associate Professor, English
Affiliate Faculty, American Studies & the Honors College

Research and teaching interests:
Areas are national/transnational/global intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, (dis)ability, citizenship, and class in Brithish and American Literatures and Cultures, Theory, and Cultural Studies

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 309: Women Writers
WSt 487: Modern American Literature

Gail Stearns
Adjunct Professor, Women's Studies
Director, K-House, Common Ministry

Research and teaching interests:
Feminism and religion, ethics, women's life histories

Linda Stone
Professor, Anthropology

Research and teaching interests:
A cultural anthropologist with research interests in South Asia, international development, religion, kinship, and gender.

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 316: Gender in Cross Cultural Perspective
WSt 402: Cross-Cultural Gender and Kinship

Heather Streets
Associate Professor, History

Research and teaching interests:
Modern British history, Great Britain, and the British Empire and India history.

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 350: European Women's History

Samantha Swindell
Professor, Psychology

Research and teaching interests:
Swindell is currently an instructor for the Department of Psychology. She received her doctorate in experimental analysis of behavior from WSU in 1998

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 324: Psychology of Women

Nella Van Dyke
Associate Professor, Sociology

Research and teaching interests:
Political Sociology/Social Movements, Hate Crime, Gender and Sexualiy. My research focuses on social movements and hate crime, with attention to the relationship between systems of stratification and movements. I am interested in how structural characteristics of the social context influence levels of protest activity and hate crime. Recent projects include studies of the dynamics of student protest, social movement coalitions, and the factors influencing right-wing mobilization. I am currently conducting research on the AFL-CIO's Union Summer student internship program and how it has influenced student anti-sweatshop protests. I am also doing a study of the extent to which different social movements target the state versus non-state entities. Another current project examines how the gender composition of social movement organizations changes over time.

Libby Walker
Assistant Dean, Honors

Research and teaching interests:

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 305: Gender and Politics

Amy Wharton
Associate Professor, Sociology, WSU-Vancouver

Research and teaching interests:
Gender; Work and Occupations; Organizations; Stratification; Social Theory; Sociology of Emotion

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 300: Intersections of Race, Class, Gender and Sexualities
WSt 384: Sociology of Gender

Clare Wilkinson-Weber
Instructor, Anthropology, WSU-Vancouver

Research and teaching interests:
Gender and artistic production; socio-cultural organziation of Hindi filmmaking; clothes and costume in India; the culture and economics of artistic production in South Asia

WSt Courses Taught:
WSt 316: Gender in Cross Cultural Perspectives