About the FREE Center
Ohio State’s Center for Feminist Research, Education and Engagement (FREE Center), housed in the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, launched in fall 2023.
As a hub for community-engaged feminist research and teaching, FREE aims to inspire, generate and support collaborative research and community engagement projects rooted in feminist approaches and perspectives. Led by a faculty board and administrative staff, the FREE Center seeks to create a collaborative, accessible space where theory meets practice.
FREE Center Research and Connection Clusters
The FREE Center currently supports 15 Research and Connection Clusters, which bring together faculty, graduate students and community partners to advance feminist scholarship around shared areas of interest. As part of an ongoing commitment to supporting feminist research across campus and the community, these clusters represent a wide range of disciplines including epidemiology, Latinx studies, physics, English, art, engineering and public health.
FREE Writes
FREE Writes is a writing group for feminist scholars at Ohio State that seeks to spur cross-disciplinary feminist inquiry, collaboration and community. The group is open to all feminist scholars across campus and includes a graduate student section and a faculty section (FemSem).
FREE Writes provides a space for creativity, motivation, and encouragement. Writing group sessions consist of brief introductions to make connections with colleagues, followed by focused writing time in which participants work on individual writing projects. Sections are held weekly and bi-weekly during the academic year.
Special event: Loretta Ross, Reproductive Justice as Human Rights
In March 2025, the FREE Center and the Ohio Prison Education Exchange Project (OPEEP) hosted prominent scholar and activist Loretta Ross, one of the founding members of SisterSong and Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective.
Ross’ talk, titled “Reproductive Justice as Human Rights,” was held at WOSU Studios and over 200 people attended the event, including students, faculty, staff and community members.
During the talk, Loretta Ross spoke about her activist background, the founding of SisterSong, and the origins of the famous tenets of reproductive justice. She describes her work in the movement as intersectional and collaborative. For example, Ross credits the fourth tenet, “the right to nurture the children we have in a safe and healthy environment”, with her effort to bring pro-life activists to the reproductive justice framework.
Feminisms in the Americas Symposium
The FREE Center wrapped up its second year of events and programming with the two-day Feminism in the Americas Symposium. The symposium was organized in collaboration with the Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS). Two scholars traveled to Ohio State for the event: Dr. Lina-Maria Murillo, an assistant professor, of gender, women's and sexuality studies and history from the University of Iowa, and Dr. Claudia Cabello Hutt, an associate professor of women and gender studies and philosophy from George Mason University.
On the first day of the event, Murillo and Cabello Hutt facilitated a graduate student workshop on archives. Following the workshop was a welcome reception which featured live painting by local artist Cat Ramos, and poetry readings by graduate students HG Morrison and Andrea Armijos Echeverría, as well as Cat Ramos.
The next day included presentations from Murillo and Cabello Hut as well as a roundtable discussion on “Teaching Transnational Feminisms.” The panel featured the visiting scholars, as well as fabian romero, assistant professor in the Department of Comparative Studies at Ohio State, and HG Morrison. The panel was moderated by Guisela Latorre, a faculty member in WGSS.