Faculty Accomplishments

Hsiao-Lan Hu (pronouns: ze/hir/hir), Director of the WGS Program and Professor of Religious Studies, led a committee of international scholars to evaluate and organize the program for the 18^th Sakyadhita International Conference on Buddhist Women, to be held in Seoul, Korea in June 2023. Upon the request of a board director of the Parliament of the World’s Religions, ze is organizing a panel on “The Global Ethic and the Challenging Path to Full Ordination for Buddhist Women” for the 9^th meeting of The Parliament of the World’s Religions, to be held in Chicago in August 2023, and is invited to be a panelist on “Multi-Religious Perspectives on the Parliament’s Global Ethic” at the same meeting. Dr. Hu was a roundtable panelist on “Transcending and Transforming Catastrophes: Women of Color and Strategies for Survival” at the American Academy of Religion 2022 Annual Meetings, and will present on the roundtable panel on “Indigenous Feminism between India and China” at the 2023 Annual Meetings. On campus, ze served as a panelist on “Faith, Hope, and Love: Faith Through the LGBTQ+ Lens—An Interfaith Panel Discussion of Faith and Identity.”

Allegra Pitera, Professor of Architecture and Community Development, will collaborate with retired WGS faculty Professor Libby Blume to research under-represented architects and designers, mostly focusing on women.

Gail Presbey, Professor of Philosophy, published “Gandhi’s Encounter with the British Suffrage Movement: Lessons Learned,” in Gandhi’s Global Legacy: Moral Methods and Modern Challenges, ed. Veena Howard (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2023), 87-106, and “Wisdom from Women in Africa” and two of the appendices in Rethinking African Sage Philosophy: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on and Beyond H. Odera Oruka, eds. Kai Kresse and Oriare Nyarwath (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2023), 99-122. She also published a blogpost “The Work of Brave Women at the El Paso-Juarez Border” on the Sisters of Mercy website on June 23, 2022.  Her journal article “How Nonviolent Movements in the Caribbean Influenced Pan-Africanism” will be published in Peace & Change: A Journal of Peace Research, 48/2 (2023). Professor Presbey presented a paper, “Catholics Supporting the Cuban Revolution: Dorothy Day in 1962, Betty Campbell and Peter Hinde in 1989” at a conference on “Construction of socialism in theory and practice” at Havana University Institute of Philosophy and Martin Luther King Center in Cuba in June 2022. She also organized the Bioneers conference hosted by Detroit Mercy in October 2022.

Dawn Archey, Associate Professor and Assistant Chair of Mathematics, co-published with Professor Linda Slowik, Professor Xiaohui Zhong, Professor Kathleen Zimmerman-Oster, and Provost Pamela Zarkowski “Understanding How Social Support Alleviates Work Interference with Family among Faculty” in the Journal of the Professoriate. This work is based on analysis of the data from the Faculty Workplace Experiences Survey that they conducted to study gender differences in workplace climate, especially as they impact women in STEM. The study received an NSF ADVANCE grant. https://caarpweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/social_support_alleviates_work_interference_slowik_et_al._12-2-2.pdf

Greg Grobis, Associate Professor and Chair of Performing Arts, received a Fulbright Hays GPA Brazil Trip scholarship and will be studying in Brazil in July 2022. Based on  this and other research he will develop a Theatre and Social Change project called “Unheard Voices” which will be centered on gender and LGBTQ issues of oppression. Professor Grobis plans to use methods from A. Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed to create this project for presentation in April 2023.

Amanda Hiber, Associate Director of the WGS Program and Senior Lecturer in English, led the post-show discussion of the Theatre Company’s production of The Addams Family Musical, focusing on Morticia and Wednesday Addams as Goth feminist cultural icons.

Hsiao-Lan Hu, Director of the WGS Program and Professor of Religious Studies, published “Buddhism and Liberation of Gender and Sexual Minorities: From Anātman to the Bodhisattva Ideal” in Faith(s) Seeking Justice: Dialogue and Liberation, published by the World Council of Churches. Ze presented “Multiply Queered, Singularly Queered, Victimhood, and Spiritual Growth” at the conference Queering Religious Paradigms: Critical Approaches to Gender & Sexuality/-ies in Religious Thought and Practices. Dr. Hu gave a public talk “Perceiver of the World’s Cries—Avalokiteśvara Practices and Queered Identities” held by the Zen Mountain Monastery. As the current Vice President of Sakyadhita: International Association of Buddhist Women, ze also organized the 17th Sakyadhita International Conference on Buddhist Women that took place in December 2021 and had 1,080 attendees from around the globe. Ze has a collaborative project with Dr. Sharon Suh of Seattle University and Dr. Tamara C. Ho of University of California, Riverside, entitled “Asian American Feminist Guidebook to Teaching Buddhisms in America.” Hir manuscript Identity and Unhappiness: A No-Self-Help Book for the Misfit is to be published in the Hauntings series by the New York University Press.

Allegra Pitera, Professor of Architecture and Community Development, is currently researching Architecture History & Theory topics and examples that provide a more diverse, balanced, nuanced, and non-western-centric worldview. The intention is to work collaboratively with other faculty to update the undergraduate Architecture History & Theory courses. To best engage students in critical thinking along with effective learning and application outcomes, best practices in the methods of content and delivery, discussion, and assessment are being explored.