“Yes! I’m a Feminist.” is celebrating eight years as an annual event organized by the WGS Community Advisory Board in support of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at The College of Charleston. While this year has kept us at a distance, we have been working tirelessly behind the scenes to find a creative way to celebrate our “wins” with our most loyal and generous supporters and to invite our global community to the party.

This year, our annual fundraising event will be completely virtual. With COVID-19 as a deciding factor, we have instead poured our energy into creating a video that encapsulates the culmination of our hard-fought past, acknowledges our present-day reality, and looks onward to a brighter, more feminist future. We are, if nothing more, celebrating the mere fact that we’ve survived one of the most arduous years in recent memory, while preparing for the vital work ahead.

With this video, we hope you see yourself in the imagery, hear yourself in the words and feel a sense of pride in what we have accomplished, together. We also hope you are moved to deepen your resolve and to give what you can to support an unprecedented academic program in a grand institution that is committed to challenging the status-quo, getting into good trouble and bending the arc toward a more just world – for all.

Today through Thursday, January 28 – CofC Day! –
We are campaigning for feminist futures
and a more just world for all.

Our goal this year is to raise $25,000 to fund our Student Opportunities Fund, directly supporting specific programs that enhance the experience of our students, including access to revered speakers and mentors, unique opportunities for professional development and mentorship, and educational offerings that support our community at-large. With your donation, Yes! I’m a Feminist and the Women’s and Gender Studies program will continue to help students with tuition, programming, study abroad, and expanded research and internship opportunities. Your support has had an enormous impact on what we have been able to accomplish, together.

Watch our video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/BS8TyLthzRQ

HIGHLIGHTS from Academic Year 2019-2020 include:

• Pivoted to 100% online instruction of over 500 students in WGS classes in a matter of days due to COVID-19. Held a virtual graduation celebration for Spring 2020 graduates.
• Successful faculty search and hiring of Elizabeth Velásquez Estrada, Assistant Professor, for the Fall 2021 semester.
• Welcomed Mariah Parker on campus for “Cultivating Courage” lecture and hip hop event at The Royal American – named “one of the young, radical women of color rescuing the Democratic party”
• Virtually hosted esteemed women’s historian Anya Jabour (University of Montana) for Women’s Equality Day (8/26) lecture Sophonisba Breckinridge, the Suffrage Movement, and Social Justice
• Hosted campus-community book club around Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All, culminating in a virtual event with Professor Martha S. Jones, the Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor at Johns Hopkins University.
• Hosted more than a dozen virtual events in the fall 2020 semester for students, faculty, staff, alums and community members. All events have focused on our anti-racism commitments.
• Launched the Student Advisory Committee – a diverse group of student leaders in WGS to advise program decisions
• Expanded the Community Advisory Board with highly respected women and advocates for feminist values in the Charleston community
• Secured the Ketner-Crunelle LGBTQ+ Endowed Scholarship – a first ever LGBTQ+ scholarship at the College of Charleston

On behalf of the College of Charleston’s Women’s and Gender Studies Community Advisory Board, students, and faculty, we graciously THANK YOU for supporting this exceptional, ever-growing program for over eight years! Through the WGS major and minor, students are able to devote themselves to the study of identities, power, and intersectionality in different cultures, contexts, and time periods. We discuss complex cultural issues – from historical to contemporary controversies – and teach students to think on their feet to develop a range of analytical approaches. Our students are the future. And the future is now.

GOALS for the 2020-2021 Academic Year on behalf of the WGS Community Advisory Board include:

• Produce the 8th Annual Yes, I Am A Feminist! event, raising a minimum of $25,000 to directly support the WGS mission and programs.
• Deepen existing community relationships and procure new strategic partnerships across the Lowcountry, state of South Carolina and the region.
• Expand recruiting, programming and advocacy efforts continuing to offer a leading-edge curriculum and high-impact experiential learning for students and opportunities for community engagement.
• Increase Student Opportunities Fund to $25,000, assisting students who need financial support to participate in study abroad, unpaid internships, research and creative activities, and advocacy or activism in projects that advance social justice.

We invite you to contribute to our only fundraising event of the year by supporting all of the extraordinary programs created for and by WGS students. We invite you to celebrate the life of Alison Piepmeier, whose legacy lives on in the mission and contributions of a small and mighty academic program that reaches well beyond the classroom. We invite you to deepen your resolve and invest in your community that supports a more just world. We invite you to…

DONATE TODAY.

give.cofc.edu/WGS

Donations can also be made by check and mailed to:
Women’s & Gender Studies, College of Charleston, 66 George St, Charleston, SC 29424

College of Charleston’s Women’s and Gender Studies Program Community Advisory Board:

Callie Shell, Chair (‘83), Amanda Bunting Comen (‘01), Margaret Pilarski (‘07), Barbie Schreiner (‘13), Leah Suárez (‘05), Ali Titus (‘10)