WCC Co-Chairs Report, January 2018
Chiara Sulprizio and Rebecca Futo Kennedy, WCC Co-Chairs 2017
The WCC has had yet another busy and productive year! In what follows we list the areas and the activities undertaken by the WCC:
Communication
1. Our biggest accomplishment in this area was the successful launch of the two-year “Resist Together” campaign: we composed and published a statement detailing the aims of the campaign; we also voted to expand the use of the Equity Fund for things such as climate studies, Title IX training, legal aid, etc.
2. Related to this, we also updated this WCC’s Mission Statement to reflect our commitment to advocacy, especially as it pertains to diversity and equality in the profession.
3. Also related, we composed and published an anti-discrimination statement in response to some troubling incidents involving some of our members. This action was subsequently taken up by the SCS leadership as well.
4. Rebecca and Chiara worked with COGSIP, Helen Cullyer & the SCS board to craft a Conference Code of Conduct (based on comparanda from other conferences), which featured in the Annual Meeting program for 2018. This was a good first step to addressing this issue, but there is more work to do on this front: COGSIP determined that the SCS Professional Ethics Statement needs updating and they are working with the Professional Ethics committee and Barbara Gold, VP of Professional Matters, to address that. Once that happens the Conference Code of Conduct will likely be revisited and expanded. The WCC and COGSIP also continue to push for wider publicizing of the Code, the requirement to sign the Code as part of registering for the conference, as well as the assignment of a conference safety officer. Deborah Beck from COGSIP attended the SC meeting from 6–7 pm to discuss this and other issues.
5. Melanie Subacus volunteered to migrate and update the Diotima website — this has been a major undertaking and we are grateful for her efforts. She has done a fantastic job thus far and will be continuing this project into 2018. Once the site is set up, the SC will need to appoint an editor for the site, who will maintain it going forward.
6. Cloelia is well-established now in its new home on Medium.com. We published a number of essays in 2017 and have some more slated for 2018. Stats for past 90 days as of 12/31/17: 4 average visitors per day, 578 views, 642 minutes read.
7. The WCC’s presence on social media has continued strongly due to the efforts of our Social Media Officer, Alison Traweek, along with Chiara Sulprizio’s work behind the scenes on the Facebook page. The Monday Links remain popular. We currently have 994 followers on FB. Rebecca has now been given access to Facebook and has joined Twitter and may take on the Twitter feed if Alison is unable to continue.
8. The WCC website continues to be maintained by Chiara Sulprizio, who will be continuing in this role in 2018. She intends to complete the migration of the Cloelia blog to the archives. Chris Ann Matteo maintains the steering committee and elected mailing lists.
Operations
1. We voted to revamp the structure and management of the WCC Mentoring program. The program is now overseen by the two junior vote getters in their last two years on SC. In 2018 this is Melissa Funke and Melanie Racette-Campbell, who have done a great job of getting the new program off the ground. The use of an online form for signing up for the program has been implemented. The hope is that there will be more continuity and ease in the administration of this important program. There has also been discussion of expanding the mentoring program to work with other groups such as Classics and Social Justice and the Women in Archaeology interest group. Finally under the umbrella of mentoring, a set of women’s-only “Research Coffee” meetings have been set up at the SCS/AIA. We have 31 mentors signed up and 44 women seeking mentors ranging from early graduate students to ABDs to post docs to post-PhD, both on and off the tenure track. It is hoped that this will be a successful venture and will become a regular activity at the annual meeting.
2. We voted to expand the free one-year membership to K-12 teachers as a means of engaging more deeply with this group and expanding their presence in the WCC. Dominic Galante also undertook some data collection on this group in order to learn more about who they are and what their needs are. Efforts to reach out to and support this group is a topic that we should continue to discuss.
SCS & Regional Conference Activities
The WCC has had a particularly robust presence at both regional conferences and at SCS/AIA this year:
1. CAMWS: At CAMWS this year, we co-sponsored the opening night feature panel on Grace McCurdy and co-sponsored with CAMWS the opening night reception. We scheduled a meeting, but changed the location to the hotel bar and merged it with drinks. There was a roundtable organized by Amy Pistone and Rebecca Kennedy on gender and service (“Making Sandwiches in Academia”). It was well-attended with over 30 people, both female and male. We also ran advertisements in the program. Overall, we had a great presence and CAMWS has been very supportive of helping us expand our presence. Last year’s CAMWS, however, had fewer attendees than is typical, so tabling was a challenge. We may have better luck in Albuquerque.
This coming year, we are again co-sponsoring the opening panel (“Fashioning Women on Screen”) and the opening evening reception, as well as a coffee break in the book room. We decided to sponsor the coffee instead of trying to host a happy hour or other event. There is no specifically WCC sponsored roundtable or panel this year, but there are numerous women, gender, and sexuality focused panels (including the Presidential Panel) featuring members of the WCC — this is a big win as it means these papers and panels are getting submitted and accepted without needing to be guaranteed. We will also advertise in the program once again, this time with a fundraising call for the Equity Fund and what it can do for the Resist Together campaign.
The advocacy panels this year at CAMWS are focused on diversity (which Amy Pistone is leading as part of the Classics and Social Justice initiatives) and on contingent faculty (lead by SCS Committee on Contingent issues member Bill Tortorelli). There is also a workshop on intersectional teaching proposed by the Graduate Student Issues Committee, in which Amy Pistone is also participating. There is also a panel on classics and white supremacy, which was also an initiative of the Classics and Social Justice group and which will feature Rebecca. These are not WCC initiatives, but we should support all the work being done parallel to us in these areas.
2. CAAS: For the first time, we had a WCC sponsored panel on Feminism and Classics in honor of Barbara McManus, which was chaired by Ted Gellar Goad. We also sponsored a breakfast there, where we got lots of good engagement/feedback. We are hopeful that this is something we can do again, perhaps every other year.
3. SCS: Last year we had a successfully sponsored panel on “Mothers and Daughters in Antiquity”. This year, in addition to our traditionally sponsored panel on the topic of “Material Girls,” we worked with COGSIP/Professional Matters to present a panel on harassment broadly defined, chaired by Rebecca Futo Kennedy. We also tried again and succeeded(!) this time in getting our anti-harassment training workshop accepted, which was chaired by grad reps Caitlin Hines and Anna Simas. We will also have #mequoque buttons for sale this year to benefit the Equity Fund at the WCC table.
We’d like to encourage continued involvement in these conferences in terms of continuity, regularity, communication, and budgeting for these events. Rebecca continues to act as the liaison to CAMWS. We do not have a specific liaison to CAAS. It may be good for continuity to have someone act as a CAAS liaison for an extended period.
Awards and Grants
1. We voted to create a new “Public Scholarship” award, which recognizes work that addresses feminist concerns that is geared toward non-specialist audiences. The award is to be administered by a committee chosen from the membership and the winner receives a prize of $300. This year the award went to the Editorial Board of Eidolon.
2. Advocacy Awards: We did not present an award for Professional Equity and Sharon James won the award for Leadership. As in years past we received few nominations and the process for determining worthy nominees was not totally clear. It was determined that going forward the winners of these awards should be chosen by the SC, rather than by external nominations, though nomination materials still seem necessary. There also remains a question about attaching money or some other token to these awards beyond recognition. This is an area that needs further discussion.
3. The travel and childcare grants awarded for the SCS meeting in Boston in 2018 represent an increase from last year. We awarded four Caregiver grants and eleven Travel Grants — the most in WCC history — totaling $4250. We again coordinated our efforts this year with the SCS, as they were also offering travel and child care grants.
Global Classics
1. Last year we agreed it was a priority to establish more formal ties to our sister organizations, and accordingly we voted to add official liaisons on behalf of Australasian Women in Ancient World Studies (AWAWS) and Women’s Classical Committee UK. We are also in talks with members of the Women’s Network of the Classical Association of Canada about creating a liaison position.
a. Note: Sonya Wurster (AWAWS) and Rosa Andujar (WCC-UK) attended the SC meeting from 7–7.30 pm to report on their activities and to find possible areas of coordination in the future
2. Next year’s SCS/AIA panel will also be on the topic of “Global Feminism and the Classics,” which may also prove a unique opportunity to further explore and strengthen ties between the disparate groups.
