Library Book Display
March 2022 / Geisel Library
International Women's Day 2022
Tuesday, March 8, 2022
International Women's Day is celebrated annually on March 8th. It offers an opportunity to reflect on progress made, to call for change and to celebrate acts of courage and determination by ordinary women who have played an extraordinary role in the history of their countries and communities.
Paint and Sip
Tuesday, March 8, 2022, 7 p.m., LLC
Come and join us for a night of canvas painting and mocktails. Facilitated by Joycelin Raho from Campus Ministry, participants will be instructed on how to paint a picture inspired by Maya Angelou's poem "Phenomenal Women".
Sponsored by Campus Ministry and the Center for Intercultural Learning and Inclusion
Film: "The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo"
Wednesday, March 23, 2022, 4 p.m., Dana 1D
Frida Kahlo is part of popular culture, on tee-shirts and tote bags. What does this image miss about her pioneering life and art? And how does thinking about the reality and image of Frida Kahlo through her art help us see something important about differences among her potential multilingual audiences?
This event is co-hosted by Prof. Ines Vano Garcia (Modern Languages), Laura Shea ( Art History) and the Center for Intercultural Learning and Inclusion
Celebrating the History of Women at Saint Anselm College
Wednesday, March 23, 2022, 12:30 pm, Event Space
In the mid-1970s, Saint Anselm College became the first Benedictine liberal arts college in the country to transition to a fully coeducational institution. In doing so, Saint Anselm ushered in a new era for Benedictine Catholic higher education in the United States. Saint Anselm’s coeducational transition radically changed the institution’s culture, student life, and social identity. Because the primary contributory factors in the College’s decision to transition to coeducation were economic, the transition also financially preserved Saint Anselm’s commitment to offering a high-quality liberal arts education for students.
While women who attended Saint Anselm College in the early years of coeducation faced adversity with respect to programming and campus policies and remained significantly underrepresented until the latter part of the 1970s, their legacy paved the way for the future mission and vision of Saint Anselm—the College we know and love today. As Saint Anselm sought to find its way in an increasingly challenging and modernized higher education environment throughout the 1960s and 1970s, key administrative decisions and policy changes moved the College forward in the 1980s, a time when other Catholic institutions in the State of New Hampshire faced financial challenges, administrative turmoil, and even closure.
The increased campus-wide diversity resulting from the College’s transition to coeducation also contributed to a more defined campus commitment to diversity and inclusion matters, employing the principles of the Benedictine charism in ways that it had never been viewed before in American Catholic higher education. In this sense, under the leadership of Abbot Joseph Gerry O.S.B., Saint Anselm redefined what it meant to be a Benedictine college in the United States in the 20th century. The impacts of this application of Benedictine principles on diversity and inclusion at the College still exist today.
In the midst of considerable changes in the Catholic Church after Vatican II and transformations in Catholic higher education in a post-Land O’ Lakes Conference era, Saint Anselm strengthened its commitment to the liberal arts, to its Catholic identity, and to serving students. Without these critical changes and modernization, the College likely would have faced a variety of existential crises throughout the decade following these momentous transitions in national and global Catholic higher education. Instead, however, Saint Anselm established a firm footing and redefined its mission and curriculum in order to preserve its valuable place in the future. This interactive session explores the history of coeducation at Saint Anselm College and celebrates the vital contributions women have had to our College community throughout the past 7 decades.
-Benjamin M. Horton, Ph.D.
On the history of coeducation at Saint Anselm College
Excerpted from his work:
“Perspectives on Change: The Coeducational Transition of Saint Anselm College 1969-1979”
Film: "Slaying the Dragon"/ " Slaying the Dragon, Reloaded"
Wednesday, March 30, 2022, 4 p.m., Dana 1D
These short films consider media stereotypes of Asian and Asian American women form the silent era to today's visual media-from blockbuster films and network television to Asian American Cinema and You Tube to explore what's changed, what's been recycled and what we can hope for in the future.
This event is sponsored by the Diversity & Inclusion Innovation Fund