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June 6-7, 2008 New York City The conference will be held at St. John's University. Visit the school's website for details on the location and local attractions. Symposium Theme-Globalization has taught us that what affects women in one part of the world often impacts women worldwide. Women's and gender studies programs at Catholic colleges and universities can assist in addressing the multiple issues that emerge from this convergence, such as the distribution of health care and education, the gendered face of migration, and international labor practices. How can we engage and inspire students and renew our own research and administrations as we respond to these challenges? Speakers Include Dolores Huerta and Aieshah Shahidah Simmons For our brochure about the conference click here. (PDF 1.8 MB) To apply for the Unsung Heroine Award click here or to submit a paper or presentation click here. **********************************************
Keynote Speaker: Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the UFW and board member of MS. magazine Dolores C. Huerta is the co-founder and Secretary-Treasurer of the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO ("UFW"). The mother of 11 children, 14 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Dolores has played a major roll in the American civil rights movement. Her activism began in 1955 when Dolores recognized the needs of farm workers while working for the Community Service Organization. She became a fearless lobbyist in Sacramento, at the age of 25, a time where few women, not to mention women of color, dared to enter the State Capital and National Capital to lobby legislators. Through her work with CSO, Dolores met Cesar Chavez. In 1962 after the CSO turned down Cesar's request, as their nation director, to organize farm workers, Cesar and Dolores resigned from their jobs with CSO in order to do so. At that time she was a divorced mother with seven children. She later joined Cesar and his family in Delano, California where they began the National Farm Workers Association ("NFWA"), the predecessor to the United Farm Workers Union ("UFW"). By 1965 Dolores and Cesar organized farm workers and their families throughout the San Joaquin Valley and in 1966, Dolores negotiated the first NFWA contract with the Schenley Wine Company. This was the first time in the history of the United States that a negotiating committee comprised of farm workers and a yound Latia single mother of seven, negotiated a collective bargaining agreement with an agricultural corporation. As the main UFWOC negotiator. Dolores successfully negotiated more contracts for farm workers, she also set up hiring halls, the farm workers ranch committees, administrated the contracts and conducted over one hundred grievance and arbitration procedures on behalf of the workers. These contracts established the first medical and pension benefits for farm workers and safety plans in the history of agriculture. Dolores spoke out early against toxic pesticides that threaten farm workers, consumers, and the environment. Dolores organized field strikes, directed the grape, lettuce, and Gallo Wine boycotts, and led the farm workers in campaigns for political candidates. As a legislative advocate, Dolores became one of the UFW's most visible spokespersons. Robert F. Kennedy acknowledged her, the farm workers, and Cesar's help in winning the 1968 California Democratic Presidential Primary moments before he was assassinated in Los Angeles. Dolores directed the UFW's national grape boycott that resulted in the entire California table grape industry signing a three-year collective bargaining agreement with the Unite Farm Workers. In 1973 the grape contracts expired and the grape growers signed sweetheart contracts with the Teamsters Union. Dolores organized picket lines and continued to lobby. The UFW continued to organize not only the grape workers but the workers in the vegetable industry as well until violence erupted and farm workers were being killed. Once again the UFW turned to the consumer boycott. Dolores directed the east coast boycott of grapes, lettuce, and Gallo wines. The boycott resulted in the enactment of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975, the first law of its kind that grants farm workers the right to collectively organize and bargain for better wages and working conditions. In 2002 Dolores was the second recipient of the Puffin Foundation/Nation Institute Award for Creative Citizenship (visit www.nationinstitute.org). Dolores is a board member for the Feminist Majority Foundation (visit www.feminist.org) that advocates for gender balance. She is also teaching a class on community organizing at the University of Southern California. Awards In 1984 the California state senate bestowed upon her the Outstanding Labor Leader Award. In 1993 Dolores was inducted into the Nation Women's Hall of Fame. That same year she received the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Roger Baldwin Medal of Liberty Award; the Eugen V. Debs Foundation Outstanding American Award, and the Ellis Island Medal of Freedom Award. She is also the recipient of the Consumers' Union Trumpeter's Award. In 1998 she was one of the three Ms. Magazine's "Women of the Year", and the Ladies Home Journal's "100 Most Important Women of the 20th Century". In 1998 Dolores received the United States Presidential Eleanor D. Roosevelt Human Rights Award from President Clinton. On December 8, 2002 she received the Nation/Puffin Award for Creative Citizenship. In 2003 she received a short term appointment as a University of California Regent. Honorary Doctorate Degrees Dolores has received honorary doctorate degrees from:
Aishah Shahidah Simmons is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, international lecturer, published writer, and activist who uses the moving image, written and spoken word to advocate for social change. She is the producer, writer, and director of the documentary NO!, which explores the international reality of rape and other forms of sexual assault through the first person testimonies, scholarship, spirituality, activism and cultural work of African-Americans. Winner of an audience choice award and a juried award at the 2006 San Diego Women Film Festival, NO! also explores how rape is used as a weapon of homophobia. NO! has been screened and distributed at film festivals, community centers, colleges/universities, high schools, correctional facilities, rape crisis centers, conferences throughout the United States, in Italy, Spain, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Rwanda, Kenya, Nepal, South Africa, Jordan, Burkina Faso, Peru, and Mexico. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center-the comprehensive center for information, research, and emerging policy on sexual violence intervention and prevention in the United States–designated screenings and discussions of NO! in community settings as the Featured Event during their 2007 Sexual Assault Awareness Month Campaign. Alice Walker, Pulitzer prizewinner, notes that " If the Black community in the Americas and in the world would heal itself, it must complete the work [NO!] begins."
Dr. Barbara Koziak
- St. John’s University, Conference Committee Chair 1992: First
national conference, Making Connections I: Enhancing Women’s
Studies, Research, and Academic Lives, Boston College.
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