Dear CSWAC members,

As the year draws to an end, I want to thank you for your membership and participation in CSW.  I have thoroughly enjoyed being part of developing CSW as a hub for feminist and social justice-oriented research and scholars at UCLA.  Although remote life presented many new and unforeseen challenges, we still sponsored a number of exciting events and activities over this past year.  I’ve listed some highlights of the past academic year’s activities below.  We look forward to hosting more events next year—hopefully in person!

 

The CSWAC Covid Impact Survey Results Report is also attached, along with the cover letter with which it was sent.  I am especially grateful to Jessica Cattelino, who helped strategize where to send the report and circulated it among the Post-Pandemic Research Visioning Working Group, on which she also serves.  We have already received positive feedback regarding the report, and I am feeling cautiously optimistic that it might make some difference in how the University addresses the pandemic’s impacts in the years to come. 

 

Thank you again for being part of CSWAC!  I hope that you have a wonderful end of the year and a relaxing summer!

Best,

Lieba Faier

CSWAC Chair 2020-2021

 

CSW 2020-2021 Highlights

 

• Alicia Garza was the recipient of CSW’s 2020 Distinguished Leader in Feminism Award. She is an innovator, strategist, and organizer, and the co-creator of #BlackLivesMatter and the Black Lives Matter Global Network, an international organizing project to end state violence and oppression against Black people. She gave a keynote at our 2020 Awards Celebration in October 2020.
• CSW co-hosted an event with the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office and the UCLA’s Criminal Justice Program titled, “Gender, Race, and Age Behind Bars: Impacts of Long-term Sentencing”, where we heard from two formerly-incarcerated women activists on the compounded adverse impacts of long-term sentencing on the elderly incarcerated, women and transgender people, and people of color in prison and beyond.
• CSW held our first virtual Thinking Gender conference titled, “Care, Mutual Aid, and Reproductive Labor in a Time of Crisis”. This year’s conference spoke to the pandemic conditions of the past year focusing on feminist, queer, trans, transnational, Indigenous, and intersectional approaches to care, mutual aid, and reproductive labor. Seven private panel workshops were held with graduate students and moderators from all over the country. The conference culminated in a powerful keynote event featuring Dean Spade, JD, and Dr. Melanie Yazzie (Diné). Dean Spade gave a presentation titled, “Mutual Aid for Survival and Mobilization,” and Melanie Yazzie’s presentation was titled, “Ecologies of Indigenous Caretaking.”
• CSWAC held our first virtual writing retreat on April 23, 2021. It was such a success that we started hosting more on Fridays, 5/7, 5/21 and 6/4.
• CSWAC Corner was created to spotlight our amazing members!
• CSWAC members participated in a COVID-19 survey, with results and summary going out to various members of campus leadership. 
• The History of CSW: A Visual Timeline was completed! Take a look to see all the amazing things we’ve been doing for the last 36 years.
• CSW created an emergency fund for international and undocumented graduate students in fall 2020. We awarded almost $13K to graduate students in need.
• Lastly, former California state senator and  Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly Mitchell will be this year’s Distinguished Leader in Feminism Award. She will give a keynote on Thursday, 5/20/21 at 4 pm for our 2021 Awards Celebration. Register here.

 

 

The Tongva peoples are the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar (the Los Angeles basin and So. Channel Islands).  As part of a land grant institution, we are grateful to have the opportunity to work for the taraaxatom (indigenous peoples) in this place.  We recognize their ongoing dispossession from their land.  We pay our respects to Honuukvetam (Ancestors),  'Ahiihirom (Elders), and 'eyoohiinkem (our relatives/relations) past, present and emerging.