MOUNT VERNON -- Student members of the Womyn's Action Group (WAG) at Cornell College searched for a conference geared toward college-age women, with speakers addressing topics including spirituality, body image, activism, sexual orientation and women's health care. When the conference didn't exist, they created their own.
On Saturday, March 25, WAG will present a women's conference, "We Are the Ones We've Been Waiting For," beginning at 9:30 a.m. in The Commons. Cost is $5. Registration is requested by March 22, and forms are available at The Commons Information Desk. Or participants can register by mail, making a check payable to WAG and sending it to Box 2019, Cornell College, 810 Commons Circle, Mount Vernon, IA 52314. Registration also will be available the day of the conference, beginning at 9 a.m. in The Commons.
The keynote speech at 2:30 p.m. in King Chapel will be delivered by Rebecca Walker, who was named to Time magazine's roster of 50 leaders for the 21st century. After graduating from Yale in 1992, Walker co-founded Third Wave Direct Action Corp., a national nonprofit organization dedicated to cultivating female leaders and activists. Her first project was Freedom Summer '92, a voter-registration drive that netted 20,000 new voters, most of them low-income, young women of color. For her efforts, Walker was named Feminist of the Year by the Fund for the Feminist Majority. Like her mother, novelist Alice Walker ("The Color Purple"), Walker is a writer and has been a contributing editor to Ms. magazine since 1989.
Conference participants can choose from several sessions featuring the following presenters and topics:
- Kerri Barnstuble, domestic violence specialist for the YWCA, Cedar Rapids, on dating violence and sexual assault.
- Helen Damon-Moore, Cornell instructor in education and women's studies and director of volunteer services and service learning, on the importance of involvement in "Anything We Love Can Be Saved: Gender, Cultures, Service, and Activism."
- Ricci Hellman, Cornell associate dean and director of counseling services, on body image in "Phenomenal Womyn Come in Many Shapes, Colors, and Sizes."
- Traci Taylor, director of education at Planned Parenthood of East Central Iowa-Cedar Rapids, on reproductive health care and Planned Parenthood's services as a family planning clinic.
- Roxie Tullis, regional educator at Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa-Iowa City, on sexual orientation in "Yankee Doodle Heterosexuals and Other American Myths: Normalizing Human
Sexuality Through Understanding Sexual Orientation."
- Francine Thompson and Jennifer Lindaman, directors of the Emma Goldman Clinic in Iowa City, on collaborations between feminists of color and white feminists, plus white privilege and how it relates to feminism.
- Rev. Catherine Quehl-Engel, Cornell chaplain, on "The Journey is the Destination: Mapping Your Spiritual Biography" and "Holy Silence, Holy Terror: A Feminist Reconstruction of the Role of Silence and Self-Emptying in Christian and Buddhist Thought."
- Carolyn Zerbe Enns, Cornell associate professor of psychology, on "Naming and Responding to Women's Distress: Challenges for the 21st Century." She will explain how labels describing women's problems may have a significant impact on positive or negative views of women who encounter mental health difficulties.
For more information on the conference, contact Adrienne Kamler, 895-5750 or a-kamler@cornellcollege.edu, or Alli Lohr, 895-5343 or a-lohr@cornellcollege.edu.
