Leila Ahmed's book "A Border Passage: From Cairo to America-A Woman's Journey" was published in the spring by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Her book was favorably reviewed in many places, including the New York Times Review of Books. This year Leila will be teaching Women's Studies at Harvard Divinity School. We will miss her.

Arlene Avakian continues to be involved in Not In Our Town, an Amherst based anti-racism group which just got a Haymarket grant to support its work. She is also part of the Ad Hoc committee to organize the Teach-In on Affirmative Action. Her article, "Transgressing Borders: teaching About Whiteness in Women's Studies" will appear in the latest issue of Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power. On the food front, Arlene organized the panel "The Material and the Symbolic: Women, Ethnicity, Race, Class and Cooking and Eating" for the annual meeting of the Association for Food and Society. Her paper, "Are We What We Eat? Armenian American Women's Ethnic Identity and Food" is based on the research she did last semester while on leave. Another version of this paper was part of a plenary session she organized for a conference on Armenians in New England. She and Barbara Haber are co-editing a book of scholarly articles on women and food. Arlene continues to serve on the Five College Women's Studies Research Center Steering Committee and the MSP Board.

Marta Calás has been very busy directing Women's Studies (see Director's Statement on front page) and planning the fall conference "Re-Organizing Knowledge: Trans-forming Institutions; Knowing, Knowledge and the University in the XXI Century" (see related article.) In addition Marta has received a Fulbright Scholar grant to conduct research in Finland in the spring of 2000. She will be at the Ĺbo Akademi in Turku and she will address issues of gender, organizational theory and diversity. Her work in Finland will continue her long term research combining feminist theory with organizational theory, focusing on how organizations are designed, the values that sustain them, and the origins and meanings of those values. This is her 2nd Fulbright grant. Congratulations Marta. We will miss you this spring.

Alex Deschamps had a mini-sabbatical because she was a Lilly Fellow for 1998-1999. Her project concerned feminist pedagogy and Third World Women's Research Methodology. As usual, she was a faculty supervisor for the BDIC program and a faculty advisor in the Honors Program/Commonwealth College. She is looking forward to teaching Critical Race Feminism in the graduate program this fall, and is working on developing a research methodology class in keeping with our international focus as articulated in our new long range plan. Alex is developing a concept for a participatory research class with a travel component to the Caribbean in conjunction with the University of the West Indies campuses in Jamaica and Barbados. This summer she was again involved with P.L.A.Y., Planned Learning Activities for Youth which targets junior and senior high school students of color.

Ann Ferguson has been on sabbatical leave since January and will continue to be on leave this fall. She is working on a research project comparing the Nicaraguan and other Central American Women's Movements with the Spanish Women's Movement in terms of the political concepts used by popular educators and activists. She visited Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua this spring and did interviews of feminists there. She brought hurricane relief to women's groups from the local group Feminist Aid to Central America. She will be visiting Spain in the fall to complete her research. While in Europe she plans to give a talk on her research at a Citizenship and Feminism conference in Lisbon, Portugal. This past spring Ann gave a plenary talk on feminism and democracy at a Women's Studies conference at SUNY/Binghamton. She has also written two reviews and has had a paper on global women's studies and pedagogy accepted for the journal "Transformations." Finally, she is also working on a second edition of her book Sexual Democracy for Westview Press.

Linda Hillenbrand in addition to her busy schedule here at WOST, continues to take on more leadership positions in the University Staff Association, the clerical union here at UMass. Her newest duties are Chair of the Public Relations Committee, editor of the USA newsgram, and chief designer for the new USA website (http://www.umass.edu/usa). On the homefront she continues to be an advocate for children with special needs by involving herself in the interviewing and hiring of teachers for a new special education program in Amherst in which her son will be enrolled. Linda is also proud to announce the next volume of the publication, "We are More Than You See," entitled, "Voice Prints." Linda reports that her submission was inspired by her son and says it's her best piece yet. Contact Labor Management/Workplace Education for a copy or call Linda herself.

Karen Lederer has had a busy year on committees of various types within the program and outside of it-University Advisors Collaborative, Women's Studies Executive Committee, Undergraduate Studies Committee, The UMass Learning Communities Committee, the Communities Project of the Five College Women's Studies Research Center, the Chapter Board and the health and safety committee of SEIU Local 509. Last fall she taught a section of "UMass Plugged In" a course for students in the Patterson Program, a program for undeclared first year students. This course included diversity issues, selecting a major, and survival skills at the University and in life and was a refreshing new challenge. Karen has been doing a lot of thinking about how best to work with students to both prevent incompletes, and then work with people who get them anyhow. Stay tuned. As Karen enters her 40s this fall she is thinking of taking a breather from some of her committee work for a change of pace!

Nancy Patteson was busy last year working on the Women's Studies lecture series Truth & Consequences: The Ethics and Epistemology of Research. The series highlighted local professors Joyce Berkman, History, and Julie Graham, Geosciences, and noted anthropologist Laurie Whitt, Michigan Technological University, and Ellen Kornegay, CEO, Office of the Status of Women, Office of the Deputy President (as of last spring), Pretoria, South Africa. This coming year she will be researching resources toward enriching collaborations with the sciences, environmental issues, and women and development as part of the Women's Studies long range planning efforts, while also strengthening the graduate Certificate program, advising students and trying to get the course guide done on time. She is also developing strategies on curricular transformation as part of her work with the Faculty Senate Status of Women Council and continuing to be active in research on girls and women's sport and physical education initiatives and institutional gender equity.

Jan Raymond delivered the keynote speech "How Do We Make Human Rights Real for Women" at the 50th anniversary celebration of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights at the International Women's Conference in Oslo, Norway in December 1998. During January, Jan gave the opening address on "Organizing Against Sexual Exploitation, Globally" at the international conference of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women in Dhaka, Bangladesh. In May, 1999, Jan was invited to address the faculty of law at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem University in Israel and to participate in a conference on "The Status of Women on the Eve of the 21st Century" where she spoke on the trafficking in women. In June, she testified before the United Nations Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery in Geneva, Switzerland. And in July 1999, Jan attended the United Nations meeting on transnational crime where she participated in the drafting of a new UN Convention and protocol on trafficking. Jan's work has been recognized with 2 grants which will enable her to continue her projects (see article). Alas, she will be gone from the program for 2 years. Congratulations and best of luck in this crucial work.

Welcome to new faculty members filling in for core faculty who are on leave. (see course guide addenda on back page).

Sima Fahid taught "The Intersection of Gender, Sexuality and Ethnicity in Modern Middle Eastern History" this past spring, and will teach "Critical Perspectives" and "Women in Islam" this coming fall. Sima brings to her work here a background in Modern History and Middle Eastern History and previous research on gender and power.

Lisa Robinson has taught in our program in the past, and is a doctoral student in the Social Justice Program. Her research centers on the impact of racism and sexism on African-American Women Professors and Administrators. In the fall Lisa will teach "Critical Perspectives" and "Black Women and Activism."

Kathleen Zane has taught in Japan and in the United States. Her research focuses on cultural constructions of the Asian/Asian American body and her educational background is in comparative literature and cultural studies. She is interested in questions of race, popular culture and women's studies. In the fall Kathleen will teach "Women and Health" and "Asian American Women in Popular Culture."

We are fortunate to have such a talented group here with us this coming year. Take the time to seek them out for advice or information. Office hours information will be available in the main office.

Welcome Kathleen, Lisa and Sima!