2025 Women’s History Month Celebration
March 2025
Women’s Basic Necessities Drive
March 1 – 31 | DONATION LOCATION: James Farmer Multicultural Center
Co-sponsored by UMW NAACP College Chapter, Women of Color, and the Latino Student Association
UMW NAACP CC, Women of Color, and the Latino Student Association are sponsoring a month-long drive with a local non-profit organization aiming to collect basic resources for women in the greater Fredericksburg area. We are asking for your donations for basic necessities including: food, clothes, and feminine hygiene projects. All donations will be given to the Empowerhouse, a local shelter and resource for victims of domestic violence.
Peace Above Everything
Wednesday, March 12 | 5:00 p.m. | Colonnade Room, Cedric Rucker University Center
Co-sponsored by For the Culture, Women of Color and Planned Parenthood
A time for women to relax, take a break and make a vision board or paint on a canvas/glass. A speaker will share information about women’s mental health. Snacks provided.
Great Lives Series: Pat Nixon
Thursday, March 13, 2024| 7:30 pm | Dodd Auditorium, George Washington Hall
The Jubilation by Silver Companies Lecture
In America’s collective consciousness, Pat Nixon has long been perceived as enigmatic. She was voted “Most Admired Woman in the World” in 1972 and made Gallup Poll’s top ten list of most admired women fourteen times. She survived the turmoil of the Watergate scandal with her popularity and dignity intact. The real Pat Nixon, however, bore little resemblance to the woman so often described as elusive, mysterious and “plastic” in the press. Pat married Richard Nixon in June 1940. As the couple rose to prominence, Pat became Second Lady from 1953-1961 and then First Lady from 1969-1974, forging her own graceful path between the protocols of the strait-laced mid-century and the bra-burning Sixties and Seventies.
In The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon, Heath Hardage Lee presents readers with the essential nature of this First Lady, an empathetic, adventurous, self-made woman who wanted no power or influence, but who connected warmly with both ordinary Americans and people from different cultures she encountered world-wide.
Jordyn Strasberg Smith Women in Physics Colloquium
Friday, March 14 | 3:00 p.m. | Jepson Science Building, Room 225
Co-sponsored by the Society of Physics Students
Jordyn will speak about her ongoing research in Ultrafast Spectroscopy as she pursues her Ph.D. in Physics. As part of her talk, she will discuss her career path to graduate school along with successes and challenges faced on her journey. This event is open to everyone.
Women in STEM Panel
Friday, March 14 | 4:30 p.m. | Digital Auditorium, Hurley Convergence Center
Co-sponsored by OPTICA and the Society of Physics Students
In all STEM fields, women and other gender minorities are historically and systemically underrepresented. What systemic hindrances do these people face in their career path? How do individuals to overcome these systemic barriers? How can we (all of us) help to smooth the path for all individuals to succeed in STEM fields? This event is open to everyone.
Great Lives Series: Hedy Lamarr
Tuesday, March 18, 2024 | 7:30 pm | Dodd Auditorium, George Washington Hall
The Roxanne M. Kaufman Lecture
As a teenage actress in 1920s Austria, performing on the stage and in film in light comedies and musicals, Hedy Kiesler, with her exotic beauty, was heralded across Europe by her mentor, Max Reinhardt. However, it was her nude scene, and surprising dramatic ability, in Ecstasy that made her a star. She married one of Austria’s most successful and wealthy munitions barons, giving up her career for what seemed at first a fairy-tale existence. Instead, as war clouds loomed in the mid-1930s, Hedy discovered that she was trapped in a loveless marriage to a controlling, ruthless man who befriended Mussolini and sold armaments to Hitler, yet hid his own Jewish heritage to become an “honorary Aryan.”
She fled her husband and escaped to Hollywood, where M-G-M changed her name to Hedy Lamarr and she became one of film’s most glamorous stars. But as her career waned, her personal problems and legal wranglings cast lingering shadows over her former image. It wasn’t until decades later that the world was stunned to learn of her unexpected role as the inventor of a technology that has become an essential part of everything from military weaponry to cell phones—proof that Hedy Lamarr demonstrated a creativity and an intelligence she had always possessed.
Beautiful: The Life of Hedy Lamarr, Stephen Michael Shearer’s in-depth and meticulously researched biography, written with the cooperation of Hedy’s children, intimate friends, and colleagues, separates the truths from the rumors, the facts from the fables, to reveal the life and character of one of classic Hollywood’s most beautiful and remarkable women.
Women’s History Month Major Speaker: Dr. Shereen Inayatulla
Wednesday, March 19 | 7:00 p.m. | Chandler Ballroom C, Cedric Rucker University Center
Co-sponsored by the departments of English and Linguistics, Modern Languages and Literatures, Political Science and International Affairs, Psychological Science, and the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies program.
Dr. Shereen Inayatulla, Professor of English, teaches courses in composition and critical literacy studies at York College, CUNY in Jamaica, NY. Her areas of research include autoethnography, antiracist feminist pedagogy, and queer theory. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications such as the Journal of Basic Writing, Self+Culture+Writing, and The Routledge Handbook of Queer Rhetoric. The “Trans/Feminisms” special issue of Sinister Wisdom that she co-edited in 2023 was a finalist for the Leslie Feinberg Award for Trans & Gender-Variant Literature. Dr. Inayatulla is currently the General Co-editor of WSQ (Women’s Studies Quarterly).
The Hair We Grow
Tuesday, March 25 | 6 pm| Farmer Hall, Room 204
Co-sponsored by the Echo Trends and UMW NAACP College Chapter
This will be an interactive seminar about the history, issues, and backlash women face with the hair they grow all over their bodies.
Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Undergraduate Research Symposium
Wednesday, March 26 | 4 – 6 pm| Location TBD
Sponsored by the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
UMW students present their research on topics related to women’s, gender and sexuality studies. The WGST Program awards prizes for the best presentation and best poster.
Women’s History Month: Mixed Media Showcase
Thursday, March 27 | 5:00 -7:00 p.m.| Chandler Ballroom C, Cedric Rucker University Center
Co-sponsored by Women of Color, Latino Student Association, and For the Culture
This event is an art show where women on campus will be able to show off their work in many forms, like music, painting, poems, etc.
All events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted. For more information, please contact the James Farmer Multicultural Center at (540) 654-1044 or visit students.umw.edu/multicultural. Please email us at jfmc@umw.edu if you have any questions regarding disability-related accommodations.