March 26-27, 2010
The College of William & Mary
Williamsburg, Virginia

The Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Association of The College of William and Mary invites all graduate students in the fields of Arts & Sciences to submit abstracts for the Ninth Annual Graduate Research Symposium (GRS), to be held March 26 & 27, 2010 at the Sadler Center.  The broadly themed conference is designed to bring together graduate students from differing areas of study and from all stages of the degree process.  The congenial setting and professionally-oriented environment provides an opportunity for students to explain and discuss their research, while fostering community relationships across discipline boundaries.

All accepted William & Mary Arts & Sciences and visiting presenters are eligible to submit a 10 – 12 page paper for award consideration (over $4600 in cash prize awards anticipated)!  Please go to the Awards page for details.

Please note that all research presented at the GRS must have received prior approval from all co-authors and the appropriate Institutional Compliance Committees.  Each graduate student may submit only ONE abstract of no more than 1,700 characters including spaces (approximately 250 words), in one of the following categories:

1)  Natural & Computational Sciences Talk:  Twelve minute talks with three minutes for questions
(Typical Disciplines: Applied Science, Biology, Chemistry, Clinical Psychology, Computer Science, & Physics)
2)  Humanities & Social Sciences Talk:  Sixteen minute talks with four minutes for questions
(Typical Disciplines: American Studies, Anthropology, History, Psychology, & Public Policy)
3)  Poster Presentation:  One hour long poster session
(All Disciplines)

First Call for Abstracts:  October 5, 2009
Second Call for Abstracts:  November 2, 2009
Last Call for Abstracts:  November 27, 2009

Abstract Submission Deadline:  December 4, 2009  11:59 pm E.S.T.

Abstract Acceptance/Rejection Notification:  January 11, 2010

For more information or to submit abstracts, visit http://web.wm.edu/grs/.

Related Links
2010 GIS Conference

Dean McCandless Punting on the Cherwell River

From time to time, we like to keep you updated on the excellent scholarly work in which our faculty, staff, and students engage. Here in the Graduate School Office, we are proud to report that Dean Amy Thompson McCandless participated recently in a presentation of her paper at the Oxford University Roundtable on the topic of “Women in the Academy.”  Dean McCandless’s research focuses on the higher education of Southern women in the 20^th Century, and her presentation examined the historical opposition to coeducation at flagship universities in the region.

Her summary states:

“From the attempts to bar women from state flagship institutions in the 1890s to the efforts to exclude women from The Citadel and Virginia Military Institute in the 1990s, universities in the southern United States have proclaimed the deleterious effects coeducation would have on traditional gender relationships. Coeducation, one group of South Carolina students asserted, would ‘alter the spirit and tone of robust manliness of the student body which we believe to be of even greater importance than scholarship.’¹

When women were eventually allowed to matriculate, men students proceeded to ban them from clubs, activities, and buildings. Faculty ignored their presence in the classroom and/or graded them more harshly. Administrators put quotas on their admissions and imposed restrictions on their mobility. Gender discrimination in the academy was (or is) not unique to the southern United States, McCandless notes, but she believes the interrelated nature of gender and racial constructs in southern culture account for much of the historical prejudice against coeducation in the region’s institutions of higher education. It is ironic that in the 21^st century schools founded because women and blacks were barred from the top universities of southern states are now being pressured to become more ‘diverse’; i.e., open their doors to more men and whites. In the contemporary South, opposition to coeducation is more likely to come from women who argue that historic patterns of discrimination remain alive and well on today’s college campuses.”

Dean McCandless at the Oxford Union

¹ Petition to the Board of Trustees, 23 June 1903, College Archives, Special Collections, Marlene and Nathan Addlestone Library, College of Charleston.

Congratulations to Dean McCandless on her engaging presentation. To stay updated on all of her work, you can follow her here on Twitter!

Related posts

Painting a Portrait

Class Notes: Megan Prewitt Koon and Laura Swingle

We’re chirping a lot over here. Join us on Twitter.

]]> http://blogs.cofc.edu/gradschool/2009/08/05/dean-mccandless-goes-to-oxford/feed/ 0 http://blogs.cofc.edu/gradschool/2008/12/03/an-internship-announcement-and-a-call-for-papers/ http://blogs.cofc.edu/gradschool/2008/12/03/an-internship-announcement-and-a-call-for-papers/#comments Wed, 03 Dec 2008 21:30:14 +0000 Niki DeWeese http://blogs.cofc.edu/gradschool/?p=109 The South Carolina Historical Society is looking for interns to begin working with them in January.  As an intern, you will work directly with two graduates of our History program: Mary Jo Fairchild and Jane Aldrich.  I have yet to meet Ms. Aldrich, but can attest that Mrs. Fairchild is a wonderful woman to work with.  We had the opportunity to work together for two years while she completed her degree, and The Graduate Studies Office still misses her enthusiasm!  For more information regarding the internship, visit our website.

Also, there has been a call for posters for the North Carolina Museum Council/South Carolina Federation of Museum’s Annual Meeting.  The deadline to submit a poster is January 16, 2009.  You can find more details here.

The graduate students of the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center as a part of the Richards Center’s ongoing affiliation with the National Endowment for the Humanities through the NEH-funded We The People Initiative, announce “The Civil War Era in Global Perspective”

A graduate student history conference to be held on the campus of The Pennsylvania State University on February 6-7, 2009

CALL FOR PAPERS

The graduate students of The Pennsylvania State University’s George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center announce the third annual Richards Center graduate student conference on the Civil War Era (roughly the 1830s through 1880). The two-day conference will begin on Friday, February 6, and continue through Saturday, February 7. The Richards Center is committed to the integrated and comprehensive study of the Civil War era. We especially welcome papers that focus on aspects of the Civil War era from a North and South American, Caribbean, African, or European perspective. Topics of particular interest include diplomatic, military, and economic history, as well as the histories of gender and the family, reform, slavery, and emancipation, and borderlands or transnational studies. Papers from disciplines other than history are also welcome.

Prospective participants are asked to submit a one-page abstract and current C.V. no later than November 20, 2008. The abstract should clearly express the author’s argument and potential historiographical significance. Those invited to participate will be notified by December 10, 2008. Invited participants must submit a preliminary version of the 10-12 page (20 minute) paper to be presented by January 10, 2009.

Travel stipends of $300 will be awarded to each invited speaker. Invited presenters are encouraged to contact conference organizers with questions about accommodations in the area. In addition, the Richards Center will host a banquet for presenters on Friday evening.

Please e-mail all abstracts as an attachment to Anne Brinton at axb944@psu.edu.