volume 5, number 1

fall 2008

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Welcome to Voices This pre convention issue is packed with information and updates, including a couple changes to the official NCA program. See you in San Diego! Purple Day this year is planned to show solidarity for GLBTQ rights and fair labor practices with regard to the Hyatt Manchester Hotel. The FWS and WC are selling Purple Protest T-shirts, designed by Suzanne Enck-Wanzer, as a fundraiser for the WC/FWS: http://ux1.eiu.edu/~senckwanzer/FWS WCNCA/Welcome Please read the FWS/WC Statement regarding the controversy surrounding the Hyatt Manchester at the end of this welcome. We invite your comments as we continue to craft a statement to be presented at Legislative Assembly.   Melbourne Cummings is the 2008 Francine Merritt Award recipient. Check out the announcement story, as well as a feature “In Her Own Words.”    The first annual Bonnie Ritter Book Award will be presented to Mary Triece. Read this exciting announcement and more about her book.   Bonnie Ritter played a major role in the history of the division and caucus. Read more about our Herstory in this feature from last year's NCA.   Speaking of awards, the annual awards reception and the WC/FWS business meeting are being held off-site on Saturday, Nov. 22, at Salvatore’s Cucina Italiana Restaurant on 750 Front St. The business meeting runs 3:30-5 with the Merritt/Ritter Awards reception beginning at 5.    In our mentoring feature, Cerise Glenn offers tips for being a protégé.    Voices needs a new editor or co- editors. Kristy and Kim are stepping down as co-editors. Are you ready to take Voices to the next level?   See what our sister organizations are up to under ORWAC news, ICA FSD news, AEJ CSW news, OSCLG news, Catt Center news, and Links. Thank you to the IU School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI for web hosting.   Dear Members of the Feminist and Women Studies Division and Women’s Caucus: Your leadership has been working to respond to the issues surrounding this year’s NCA convention and have forwarded the following to CRTNET:   In support of concerns expressed by the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, & Queer Communication Studies Division and Caucus on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns, and in joining with the position statement of the Critical & Cultural Studies Division of NCA, the leadership of the Feminist & Women Studies Division and Women’s Caucus forward the following position: As many of you know, conflicts concerning this year's NCA convention site in San Diego have stirred controversy among its membership. The FWS/WC feels strongly that the issues surrounding the Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel controversy conflict directly with the aims and missions of both the division and caucus. At stake is how to respond to gay rights discrimination and predacious labor practices tied to hotel management and ownership.  All of the officially sanctioned NCA convention events have been planned to take place at The Manchester Grand Hyatt. First, in direct opposition to our LGBTQ allies, the owner of the Manchester Hyatt, Doug Manchester, has donated $125,000.00 to support the Proposition 8 campaign. In November, Californians will vote on Proposition 8, the  "Marriage Protection Act"—If passed, it would amend the state constitution so that, "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." Second, since 2006, national news sources and labor organizations have reported on uniquely strenuous demands on workers at the Manchester Hyatt. While hotel workers at the Hyatt are not unionized, Unite Here, a national labor organization, has been organizing picket lines and calling attention to the hotel's inequitable labor practices. For many, the picket line outside the hotel, while not generated from a formal union strike by hotel workers, represents a legitimate labor intervention. Many NCA attendees have expressed unwillingness to cross such a picket line and as such have decided to either avoid specific events at the Manchester Hyatt or to forego attending the conference altogether. In response, the NCA Executive Committee and the Executive Director have circulated a message to membership affirming a commitment to honor its contractual agreement with the Manchester Hyatt. A growing group of NCA members has organized to oppose NCA's endorsement of the Manchester Hyatt and to propose alternative venues for events.  They have created a public site on Facebook for sharing information, deliberating, and coordinating a boycott. Members of this group recently developed a resolution that institutes anti-discriminatory protocols for NCA to incorporate into its contractual agreements with hotels and other vendors. Circulated only the day before the NCA deadline for submitting new agenda items to the Legislative Assembly, the resolution garnered enough signatures to warrant it a ballot slot when the Legislative Assembly convenes in November. Although this situation has spurred fractious debate among NCA members on CRTNET, we recognize that as members of the Feminist & Women Studies Division and Women’s Caucus, our identity as scholars and teachers is inseparable from our commitment to social justice in its myriad forms and contexts. This commitment is what brings us together as a division and caucus. In our teaching, research, writing, and in our daily lives, we consciously engage in practices that aim to generate and foster more equitable, knowledgeable, and humane communities and societies.   While as individuals, the demands of daily life compel us to expend resources toward enacting our larger commitments through specific objectives, interventions and practices, when a situation arises that threatens deeply held principles integral to our division and caucus, our shared commitment to social justice binds us together. We believe that the conflict involving NCA and the Manchester Hyatt represents one such threat. This situation calls on us to demonstrate our strong opposition to unfair labor practices and to discrimination based on sexual orientation. Further, it calls on us, as a division/caucus committed to tearing down boundaries between scholarly and civic engagement, to fight a decision that tells us we must choose one or the other. Finally, we believe this situation affords us an opportunity to secure that the organization that represents us as professionals adheres to these fundamental human rights in its policies and practices. In this spirit, the Feminist & Women Studies Division and Women’s Caucus supports the following: In order to avoid having our business meeting in the Manchester Hyatt, we will host a combined business F&WS and WC meeting. The combined business meetings will take place on Saturday of NCA at Salvatore’s Cucina Italiana from 3:30-5 p.m. We have moved our Francine Merritt and Bonnie Ritter Book Award reception to Salvatore’s Cucina Italiana on Saturday of NCA from 5-6:30. The sale of purple T-shirts will help offset the cost of moving out of the Manchester Hyatt. We embrace and seek maximum inclusion of our colleagues with limited abilities and mobility. If you need assistance with transportation to this off-site location, please contact our division/caucus at fwsd.wc@gmail.com (with TRANSPORTATION in the subject line). As a division and caucus, we do not have the financial means to transfer all of our division and caucus’s panels out of the Manchester hotel. Furthermore, we do not assume that all participants on panels (chairs, presenters, and respondents) wish to move their specific panels out of the conference hotel. However, we ask that panelists who wish to relocate their session(s) take responsibility for overseeing the logistics of this process.  Moreover, we expect that participants who make alternate arrangements will activate mechanisms that ensure accessibility for all NCA attendees, protect FWS/WC presenters' visibility, particularly of our junior scholars and graduate students, and promote our deeply held principles of intellectual exchange and engagement. We support the recently drafted Resolution on Convention Siting and Location, upon which the NCA Legislative Assembly will vote when it convenes in November. This resolution institutes important protocols for securing NCA's ability to, without penalty, alter or cancel contracts with vendors who are found to support discriminatory policies or practices. We understand that FWS/WC panelists may choose to boycott particular sessions or the entire convention. At this point, we have not been able to secure reassurance from NCA headquarters that those who honor picket lines (thereby perhaps not showing up for their scheduled presentations) will not face consequences. We do promise that, at the division & caucus level, a decision to boycott all or parts of the conference will not affect your ability to present at future NCA conventions. Please see our website for information on ordering t-shirts: http://ux1.eiu.edu/~senckwanzer/FWSWCNCA/ Welcome.html   In peace, Feminist & Women Studies Division and Women's Caucus leadership Karrin Anderson Rachel Droogsma Radhika Gajjala Kim Golombisky Krista Hoffmann-Longtin Sheena Malhotra Vicky Newsom Kristina Sheeler Helen Tate   Last Updated 22 October 2008	Purple Protest T-shirt! Order yours to wear in San Diego on Saturday’s Annual “Purple Day”: http://ux1.eiu.edu/~senckwanzer/ FWSWCNCA/Welcome
	Join Us! Saturday, Nov.22 Salvatore’s Cucina Italiana Restaurant 750 Front St. Combined Women’s Caucus and Feminist & Women Studies Division Business Meeting 3:30-5 p.m. Reception: 2008 Francine Merritt Award & 2008 Bonnie Ritter Book Award 5-6:30 p.m.
	Call for New Editor or Co-Editors Voices is looking for a new editor or co-editors beginning in 2009. Contact: Sheena Malhotra, NCA FWSD sheena.malhotra@csun.edu Suzanne Enck-Wanzer, NCA WC senckwanzer@gmail.com

 

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