Eastern Michigan University: Women's and Gender Studies Program

This endowed fund is named in honor of Margaret (Peg) Smith, a community feminist, librarian, EMU alumna, and state athlete, by the contributions of friends and family in the celebration of her 80th birthday in 1994. Peg’s love of literature and literacy was legendary, and she paved a path for women with her own life achievements. The fund enhances the educational advancement of women through a scholarship award.

Eligibility: Any undergraduate or graduate student at EMU who can demonstrate 1) Financial need; 2) commitment to the advancement of women, evidence in a variety of ways, including by not limited to extracurricular activities or activism, enrollment in a women's studies major or minor or graduate program, or a non-traditional major or minor, non-traditional career choice; and 3) minimum GPA of 3.0.

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Distinguished Leaders Scholarship Award

This endowed fund is named in honor of EMU’s first-generation of women’s studies faculty upon the retirement of several original members, Dr. Daryl Hafter, Dr. Marie Richmond-Abbott, Dr. Rachel Brett Harley, and Dr. Betty Barber. With others, these founders began the first Women’s Studies minor in the state in 1975. The fund enhances the educational advancement of WGST majors through a scholarship award.

Eligibility: Current EMU WGST majors (undergraduate or graduate), junior standing and higher, who exhibit outstanding academic success as demonstrated by a) research project(s) focused on women and gender; b) academic service directly related to the study of women and gender, and c) other measures of academic success (GPA, academic presentations, honors, etc.)

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Margaret L. Rossiter Award for Outstanding Graduate Paper and Donald Drummond Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Paper This fund is named in honor of two initial champions of EMU’s Program in Women’s and Gender Studies. Dr. Margaret Rossiter was a pioneer in the scholarship of Women’s Studies, an EMU historian, and the first chair of EMU’s Women’s Studies Committee in 1973. Dr. Donald Drummond, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, 1966-1986, supported the creation of the program during his tenure as dean.

These awards are given for the most outstanding papers on women and/or gender written by EMU students. Papers must be nominated by an EMU faculty member and written in the previous calendar year. Nominees must be enrolled at EMU at the time the paper was written but need not be majors, minors, nor in the Women’s Studies graduate program.

Eligible papers must be typed and double-spaced, and 10 to 20 pages in length. A cover page with the title of the paper, the author’s name, address, telephone number and email address, the course or purpose for which the paper was written, and the term during which it was written, should accompany the paper. A brief letter of nomination from the sponsoring faculty member should also be included.

The Lloyd-Russell Prize for the Best Paper on Gender or Sexuality is awarded annually during the Winter semester. Papers may be in any discipline, but the focus must be on gender or sexuality. The award is named in honor of Anna Lloyd, former President and Executive Director of The Committee of 200, an organization of top U.S. women entrepreneurs and corporate leaders, and Kathleen Russell, former Assistant Dean of Students, Coordinator of EMU's LGBT Resource Center, and lecturer in the School of Social Work.