Message from the Director
Dear SBAI community,
It is my pleasure to introduce myself as the new director of the Susan B. Anthony Institute (SBAI). I am excited to join the University of Rochester as the director and as faculty in Black Studies and English. Over the coming months and years, I will be working with the dedicated faculty, administrators, staff, and students that have made SBAI an institutional powerhouse in terms of class offerings, programming, and community engagement.
It is my goal to build upon the strong foundation established by previous directors and to extend SBAI’s reach across the University, to the broader Rochester community, and to the exciting and extensive field of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies (GSW). The values of GSW as a field—which include diversity, inclusion, and innovation—have been very much part of SBAI prior to my taking on this role and I will continue to support and innovate new paths forward for our program, which will one day be a department, to expand our reach at the University and national levels. Here at the University of Rochester, we are uniquely poised to embrace the most cutting-edge scholarship in a political climate where the stakes have never been more critical for feminist, gender, and queer theorists.
In my over 20 years in academia, I have been dedicated to shattering glass ceilings and ensuring opportunities for other members of university communities to do the same. In this exciting new role, I intend to provide sanctuary for multiply marginalized students, faculty, and staff to do the work they are called to do and to collaborate with us to create the kind of scholastic environments that support our professional flourishing. I invite everyone in the University community to engage with SBAI as we forge a new path to an ever better future.