This year, you can choose between TWO different funds to give to within Women's & Gender Studies: The Andrea Scamihorn Memorial Award and Scholarship, and the Women's & Gender Studies Speaker Fund.
Andrea Scamihorn Memorial Award and Scholarship
Established in 2009 by her family, the Andrea Scamihorn Memorial Award and Scholarship honors the life of the late Andrea Scamihorn. Andrea was the first student to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in Women’s Studies from Ball State University and was also the recipient of the 2005 Women’s Studies Outstanding Student Activism Award. Andrea’s activism led her to Santiago, Chile where she became a teacher and an influential leader promoting anti-racism, equal rights, and anti-fascism.
She passed the day of her scheduled return to Indiana in December of 2008. Since then, the Outstanding Student Activism Award has borne her name. Recipients of this award and $250 scholarship are nominated by Women’s and Gender Studies faculty and selected for excellence in and commitment to activism on the local, national, and international level. The recipient’s name is also engraved on a perpetual plaque that is displayed in the Women's and Gender Studies program office.
The Andrea Scamihorn Memorial Award and Scholarship is not an endowed fund and is dependent on ongoing contributions to further its mission. Financial support of this award and scholarship helps the Women’s and Gender Studies program recognize and encourage outstanding Ball State University students working towards gender, sexual, and racial equality.
Women's & Gender Studies Speaker Fund
Here in WGS, we are lucky that we not only provide an academic space for courses related to Women and Gender, but we also organize most of the feminist-based events and programming on campus! Contributions to the Women's & Gender Studies Speaker Fund allow for our program staff to continue to provide Ball State's campus, and the Muncie community, with feminist programming all year long!
Over the years, the Speaker Fund has allowed us to bring many well-known feminist speakers to campus, including Gloria Steinem, Roxane Gay, Amy Richards, Jennifer Baumgardner, Julia Serano, and many others! The Speaker Fund also allows the WGS program to support on-campus events, such as Raise the Vibrations (formerly known as the Vagina Monologues), and our annual Women's Week! Most notably, Women's Week, our week-long series of events held in late March, works to celebrate Women's History Month and the contributions of women and other minorities to our campus community, and to national and global endeavors.
