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AWSS
The Association of Women in Slavic Studies is a networking resource for people concerned with the problems, status, and achievements of women in the profession. It also attempts to cover research and teaching in women's studies and questions of gender and family life in Central/Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. The organization is affiliated with AAASS (The American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies). Membership benefits include a subscription to the bi-monthly AWSS newsletter, Women East-West. NOTE: The following report is from Mary Zirin, who hopes it will inspire others to share their memories for WEW and our electronic archive as we celebrate the association's official (from incorporation) tenth anniversary in 1998. Our association has its roots in events that took place late in 1986. The Slavic Women's Studies Newsletter first came out in December of that year. It was an outgrowth of the Women's Seminar (now called a Discussion Group) that Marcelline Hutton organized in 1982 at the Summer Research Laboratory, sponsored by the Russian and East European Center of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. In 1983 Birgitta Ingemanson and I co-coordinated the seminar session, and I ran it in 1984 and 1985. When I could not attend in 1986, Bette Fox (Eastern Kentucky University) took over. Afterward, she wrote a report on the session, in which she said that the group had decided that they needed a newsletter -- and I took that as a hint. I planned on putting out two issues a year, in May and November. The first issue (all of five far from crammed pages!) was sent to everyone who had contributed to the seminar in the past and to scholars in a broad range of disciplines whom I knew to be working on gendered topics. It was oriented toward literature, since that is my field, and included an announcement of what eventually became the Dictionary of Russian Women Writers that Marina Ledkovsky, Charlotte Rosenthal, and I published in 1994. The bibliography included Barbara Heldt's Terrible Perfection and Iulia Voznesenskaia's Women's Decameron. The first number was dedicated to "the growing and enthusiastic network of scholars studying various aspects of women's lives and history in countries now under the Soviet `sphere of influence'." How growing and how enthusiastic I couldn't have imagined! The second issue of the newsletter, May 1987, first used the rubric Women East-West. Instead of a dash, the heading had an arrow pointing from West to East, and that generated discussion of what our mission actually was. Eventually the arrow was replaced by one pointing both ways and then disappeared: our goal is interchange, not one-way influence. On the front page WEW carried a report on the roundtable "Retrieving Russia's Women: Methodological Problems, Perspectives, and Strategies," held at the November 1986 AAASS conference in New Orleans. Participants were: Barbara Norton (chair), Barbara Clements, Ruth Dudgeon, Barbara Engel, and Rochelle Ruthchild. Barbara Engel reported to WEW that the gathering "drew thirty people, whose interest in the subject matter was exceeded only by their desire to continue to meet and exchange ideas. The interest in Women's Studies in Russia, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe was sufficiently great that we decided that we needed an ongoing forum. As a result, those present decided to form a Women's Studies Caucus to meet annually at the Convention of the American Association for Slavic Studies." The group also decided to arrange a luncheon and try to set up childcare facilities at the convention. Initiatives to "attempt to make Soviet archives more sensitive to and aware of women's studies as a field" were also discussed. The creation of a data bank of scholars interested in the field was suggested. People wishing to join the caucus were invited to get into touch with Rochelle; perhaps sometime she will tell us what she remembers about the response. That same issue also included Diane Nemec Ignashev's request for expressions of interest in a women's caucus for AATSEEL to meet at their national convention in December 1987. It was clear that the time was ripe for creation of a network of women in Slavic Studies and their supporters. Annual fees are $30 ($10 for students and the under-employed; $5 extra for joint-memberships at the same address). Send check made out to "AWSS" to the Secretary-Treasurer: Michelle DenBeste Members in the United States, Canada, Mexico, most of Western Europe, India, and Japan may now pay membership dues and gifts using a credit card via the web-based money transfer service PayPal. Click here for instructions. You may print out the online application to submit your information or email it directly to Michelle at mdenbest@csufresno.edu. Those living outside of the U.S. and Canada may enroll as Associates Abroad for $10/year. Gift subscriptions for interested people and groups in the FSU-C/EE are encouraged. Back copies are available at $3.
Welcome from
Our Incoming President We are an organization vitally dependent on the contributions of our individual members – our initiative, our know-how, our service, our time, and our money. As I begin my service as AWSS President, I thank all of the individuals -- the past Officers and Board members, the members serving on committees or special projects – who have given so generously and effectively to the organization, expanding AWSS lines of communication and networking through WEW, the AWSS website, and our listservs; logging hours of reading and reviewing time on assorted Prize committees; and shouldering the less glamorous and absolutely crucial jobs of organizational maintenance. I’m particularly grateful to Chris Ruane, who as President worked tirelessly to clarify our mission, plan for our future development, and improve our organizational efficiency. The Strategic Planning Committee she headed streamlined our committee structure and assured us continuity by assigning each committee a participant from the Board. We as an organization benefitted greatly from Chris’s collaborative, clearsighted leadership. I’m also delighted to report that our new Vice-President, Natasha Kolchevska, and our newly elected Board members, Angela Brintlinger, Gordana Crnkovic, Sharon Kowalsky, Cheri Wilson, and Sharon Wolchik, all have expressed great willingness to serve. I’m eager to get to work and I’m also eager to work with more members. As the introduction to our Fall 2002 web survey states, we have developed into “a mid-sized, well-recognized organization” in our regionally-related fields, but I’d argue that the “small do-all pioneering band” we’ve reportedly outgrown still best characterizes the group of members who actively serve AWSS. To phrase this point more directly: AWSS NEEDS YOU! Rhonda Clark, our superb WEW editor, is about to step down after years of dedicated service, and we’ve yet to recruit her replacement. Returns for our annual elections have declined precipitously over the last few years. It may be that AWSS has become so effective in what it provides that we take it for granted. Or it may be that AWSS services need to be rethought and revamped both to meet the changing needs of our membership and to use, but not abuse, the labor of our hardworking volunteers. In any case, we need to work together to erase this discrepancy between services provided and members involved. Fall 2002 Survey During my two years as President, I’d like to continue the collective “rethinking” we began with the Fall 2002 survey -- via email, snail mail, and our annual AWSS luncheons at AAASS. A good percentage of our members participated in the survey and contributed very productive suggestions. It was fascinating that a significant majority of respondents voted to retain services even when very few acknowledged having used them. Almost all of the survey’s participants predictably wanted us to maintain our most used services -- WEW and the two listservs. Several respondents recommended that WEW feature more short articles on women’s professional issues in the academy and incorporate more user-friendly formatting in its printing of the bibliography. Five respondents reiterated that the listservs should be used, by moderators and members, for discussion as well as announcements. Participants also overwhelmingly voted to preserve 1) the grant proposal archive, 2) the translation registry, and 3) the mentor program, although their additional comments specified that all three services need to be updated and better advertised to be effective. Suggestions for our development of new resources and networking included the creation of a member list grouped by discipline so as to facilitate mentoring and networking; “live” mentoring at conferences; and reviving a now defunct project of compiling and making available syllabi for Slavic/East European women’s studies courses. Respondents recommended establishing prizes for teaching and mentoring and grants for short-term research travel and library development. Most survey participants also supported developing AWSS chapters overseas. And a clear majority voted to explore the possibility of a separate AWSS conference. Yet, despite the various and ambitious projects members agree that AWSS should pursue, most respondents preferred to fundraise conservatively – by increasing membership dues, encouraging voluntary donations, and establishing a volunteer committee to study fundraising options. All of the above suggestions are excellent, but their realization absolutely requires increased commitment from our members. I can promise you that the newly revived Fundraising Committee (on which Board member Sharon Wolchik and I serve) will explore options and propose strategies for raising funds. But the fact remains that this enormously industrious, productive, supportive organization relies in the main on unpaid volunteer labor. AWSS is roughly equivalent in size to a regional chapter of AAASS. Think of what your regional chapter provides and then compare its services with those of AWSS. AWSS awards EIGHT prizes (six for scholarship, one for scholarly/literary translation, and one for outstanding achievement); publishes a quarterly newsletter filled with reports from the field, feature essays, and a bibliography of scholarship; maintains two listservs; and has developed a variety of networking and material resources for its membership over the years. Perhaps our overachievement reflects that we are an organization largely OF women FOR women in our conservative and interrelated fields? My guess is that we want to provide all things to all of our members because we alone highlight and sustain women’s professional development and achievements and we alone provide specific connections and support (material, moral) for women in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian studies. I ask, therefore, that you share with me your thoughts about the future direction and services of this vital organization – what we should do, what we can do, and what you will do to help -- by email or phone or regular mail (beth_holmgren@unc.edu, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, 421 Dey Hall, CB #3165, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3165, 919-962-7554). And I ask that you – an all-important individual member –decide what your contribution to AWSS might be: serving on any one of the following committees (Fundraising, Membership and Publicity, Mentoring, Nominating, Outstanding Achievement Prize); volunteering to help revive important projects like our mentoring program or our translation registry or our syllabi collection; donating a successful grant proposal to Christine Worobec (worobec@niu.edu), who has magnanimously offered to continue her service as our Grants Goddess; or perhaps recruiting new AWSS members among colleagues and contacts. I’ll be circulating periodic requests for response by listserv; I’m especially interested in setting up a subcommittee to pursue the possibility of a separate AWSS conference under the auspices of the AAASS convention or the University of Illinois Summer Workshop. I pledge my wholehearted support to the mission and service of AWSS, and I very much look forward to talking and working with all of you! AAASS Statement on Sexual Harassment The Board of Directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies condemns sexual harassment as defined by the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission of the United States government includes "Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature... when 1) submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of employment; 2) submission to, or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as the basis for employment decisions affecting such an individual; or 3) such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual's work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment." The Board of Directors of the AAASS believes that complaints of sexual harassment need to be taken seriously and investigated promptly by the institutions and agencies to which they are submitted. If sexual harassment is judged to have occurred, the harassers should be subject to disciplinary measures, including in particularly serious cases termination of employment. Established by Sibelan Forrester (Swarthmore College) n 1995, the AWSS website aims to serve as an up-to-date, functional resource for those interested in women's issues as they pertain to Slavic and East European cultures. The members' research data base came to the pages from the computer version maintained by Barbara T. Norton. The current site was reformatted by Susan Olson with the help of Microsoft FrontPage, and maintained by Susan Olson from Spring of 1997 through summer of 1998. The Board and Officers of AWSS would like to take this opportunity to thank Susan for her aesthetic and organizational gifts, which brought a tremendous improvement to these pages. We hope her gift for design will continue to shape the page in the future. Sibelan Forrester graciously maintained the AWSS website from 1998 through early 2001. In March 2001, Cheri Wilson (Loyola College in Maryland) assumed the task of updating and maintaining the website. Many areas of the website have not been updated in over two years, so please be patient as I update the website over the next few months. If you have any ideas on how to improve the content or design of this site, please do not hesitate to e-mail Cheri. |
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