Women's and Gender Studies 2010 Lecture Series

VALDOSTA -- Valdosta State University’s Department of Women’s and Gender Studies will host three speakers during fall 2010. All lectures are free to the public See below for a detailed list of topics and speakers.


6 p.m. Monday, Sept. 13
Student Union Theater
“Borders, Immigrants, and National Values: Shaping Immigration Policy to Benefit Everyone”
West Costgrove is the founder and executive director of Project Puente in El Paso, Texas, an educational project along the United States and Mexican borders. There, he addresses the realities of economic and political injustice arising from globalizing nations. For nearly thirty years, Costgrove has been politically active in American and Latin American diplomacy. His lecture at VSU will focus on illegal immigration.

6:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 11
Student Union Theater
“Human Trafficking: Modern Day Slavery”
Nola Theiss, former mayor of Sanibel Fla., is the founder and executive director of Human Trafficking Awareness Partnership and the founding chair of the Coalition Against Human Trafficking in Southwest Florida. Her most recent awareness effort is the HTAP ARTREACH program, which educates girls about the dangers of human trafficking taking place through art projects. Theiss has devoted the past six years of her life to help spreading awareness about human trafficking by utilizing her skills as a writer, educator, administrator, public official and scholar.

6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 2
Student Union Ballroom
“If I Should Die Before I Wake: Women Aging In Prison”
Writer/activist Kathleen O’Shea is a nun, a Pulitzer Prize nominee, and a social worker who focuses her research on female prisoners, particularly ones on death row. She describes herself as a teacher, writer, activist and lecturer. Some of her published works include: Female Offenders: An Annotated Bibliography in 1997, Women and the Death Penalty in the United States 1900-1998, in 1999, and Women on Death Row: Revelations From Both Sides of the Bars, in May 2000. Her devoted work with women on death row has inspired filmmakers to create documentaries and plays based on her research.