Our 50th festivities
WGSS truly pulled out all the stops for what was a momentous 50th anniversary celebration. The two-day event took place from September 19-20th, 2025. With over 125 guests joining us across both days, we welcomed students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members to Columbus campus. Together we paused, reflected, and celebrated as we closed out our first half century, while also eagerly anticipating what’s to come as we usher in the next one.
On the first day, we assembled in Hale Hall’s MLK Jr. Auditorium to kick things off with a panel of alumni working in academia. This was followed by a Graduate Student Research Showcase, where current graduate students participated in a poster session to promote their impressive work. During the lunch hour, an Alumni Story Sharing Project gave space for our WGSS community to share their own stories and histories as they relate to WGSS and feminist work. In the afternoon, we invited one of our alumni to perform a staged reading following narratives on the impacts of police violence, then welcomed another panel of more seasoned alumni in the professions and arts. We brought in the evening at Ohio Union's Performance Hall. Guests mingled over hors d'oeuvres, while dropping off tickets at the raffle table and learning more about the history of WGSS at the Remembrance table hosted by a group of our alumni. There was also shopping at the Wild Cats pop-up shop whose owner, Olivera Bratich, is a WGSS alum. After dinner, Elaine Richardson, an OSU faculty member, graced the stage to perform one of her songs, Legalize Me, which kicked off a night of dancing at the Ohio Union. During a special series of speakers, we also heard from our current and former chairs, including Mytheli Sreenivas, Jill Bystydzienski, Susan Hartmann, Sally Kitch, Valerie Lee, and Shannon Winnubst, who each shared both challenges and triumphs they faced during their tenure. On the second day of festivities, we gathered in Curl Viewpoint on north campus for a final panel of recent alumni whose careers are just beginning to take shape. To conclude our celebration, we were guided through the co-creation of a feminist mural to represent the challenges we’re facing and the joys we’re experiencing in this moment. It was a wonderful opportunity to consider collectively the impact we’ve made and the impact we hope to make as both our programs and our work carry on into the next 50 years.
Keep reading to learn more about the celebration and all of the connection, reflection, learning, and fun had by the WGSS community!
Rocking the academy alumni panel
To kickoff the 50th anniversary weekend’s programming, the department invited former MA and PhD Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies alumni to share their experiences as academics to both encourage graduate students about their futures, as well as candidly reflect on the hardships of being an educator in the current political moment. We had the privilege of hearing from Dr. Srimati Basu, an alum from 1996, who is today the Chair of the Gender and Women's Studies department at the University of Kentucky. Additionally, Dr. Krista Benson, a PhD alum who graduated in 2017, shared powerful advice to current graduate students about entering the job market, as well as staying grounded in feminist community. Dr. Mahalia Little joined us as a scholar who has worked previously at the University of California-Irvine and–most recently—at Spelman College as an Assistant Professor of Comparative Women’s Studies. She reflected on her time at Ohio State as truly “one-of-a-kind.” Lastly, we got to hear insights from Dr. J. Brendan Shaw about their experience teaching and researching as an Associate Professor at Central State University. We are so excited to stay connected with this extraordinary group of scholars, and hope to uplift their upcoming projects!
Trailblazing leaders alumni panel
The Trailblazing Professionals Alumni Panel was the second formal discussion as a part of the celebratory 50th Anniversary! The department excitedly invited Lisa Lopez, Miriam Noble, Stephanie J. Peters, and Liz Shirey to discuss their aspirational pathways towards successful leadership beyond the academy. Lisa Lopez, the first student from OSU to graduate with a BA in Women’s Studies in 1976, reflected on her decades-long career as a lawyer at Haemonetics, a global health care company. Next, we heard from Stephanie J. Peters about how she took her 1986 BA in Women’s Studies to new heights at Microsoft, Dragonfly Strategies, and the United States Democratic House Foreign Affairs Committee. Liz Shirey, a 2005 BA who served as the Director of Fundraising and Campaign Manager for Congresswoman Nina Turner, invigorated the conversation further. Specifically, Shirey reflected on the deep bond she formed with Dr. Linda Mizejewski while taking her classes on Gender & Film, as well as Feminist Perspectives on Addiction Studies. Last, but not least, we got to hear from Miriam Noble, a WGSS alum who graduated from Ohio State in 2006, who attributes her education to her passion for empowering diverse teams at Cisco, Amazon Web Services, and now as Head of Lifestyle Brands at Shopify.
Resistance through reading
We were elated to invite one of our own WGSS alumni, Keya Crenshaw, to perform at the 50th celebration. A Columbus native, Keya is an artist and the founder of Black Chick Media, LLC, a consulting firm poised to offer services to clients that support business growth, brand development and engagement, strategic planning, and much more. With accolades in filmography, theater, and acting, Keya, along with fellow actors Chiquita Mullins Lee, Vicki Thompson Saunders, and Patricia Wallace-Winbush, performed a staged reading titled Mothers of Movement. On the stage of MLK Jr. Auditorium, their performance brought to life the story of four mothers from different eras as they navigate the grief and despair of losing a child to police violence. Through their intersecting stories, the legacy of the lives that were tragically lost are honored through remembrance, resistance, and a collective call for justice. The performers embodied the experiences of those most closely impacted within this movement, and it inspired the audience to carry some of their burden, thus moving them to also move.
Powered up: Recent alumni in action
Our final panel invited recent alumni to share their success stories navigating a variety of fields of work after graduation. We heard from Jenna Butler (2023 BA), a current J.D. candidate studying at the Moritz College of Law, about how her education inspired her to pursue legal advocacy full-time. Josia Klein (2017 BA) reflected on how her training in the department prepared her for law school and the fulfilling time she spent in her former role as Senior Counsel of the National Women’s Law Center in D.C. Mia Cariello (2021 BA) shared her inspiring pathway towards working as an Education Specialist at The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, highlighting her archival and digital humanities research experiences as instrumental to her work today. Lily Ferguson (2023 BA) shared the inspiring political education and creative marketing work they do at Innovation Ohio that began with a Women in Political Leadership Internship. Finally, Mace Hickman (2020 BA) shared their extraordinary work as a full-time advocate serving as the Director of Marketing for Planned Parenthood’s entire South Atlantic region. Their passion was ignited through their studies in the department, as well as the WGSS service-learning experience that set them up to volunteer with local reproductive justice organizations as a student. After the weekend’s alumni panels, one thing became evidently clear: with an education in WGSS, you can do anything!
Alumni Story Sharing Project
The department had the absolute pleasure to walk down memory lane and spotlight important milestones our program achieved over the past five decades. From opening up as the Office of Women's Studies in 1975, to hosting the National Women's Studies Association conference in 1983, to achieving departmental status in 1995, the event gave alumni the stage to share their stories from the past to inform our path towards 50 more thriving years of WGSS at Ohio State! To learn more about the history of the department, please visit reclaimingourhistories.org
Spotlighting our alumni: Q&A
Stephanie J. Peters, BA, '86
Q: Can you share about your current field of work?
A: As we say in Washington, DC, I am a Congressional staffer and work on “Capitol Hill." Specifically, I am the Senior Oversight Counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, as well as the Staff Director for the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. In these two roles, I manage oversight compliance with U.S. foreign affairs laws and policies and work with senior State Department officials regarding national security matters and coordination of the relationships with multinational organizations such as the United Nations.
Q: Do you have a recent accomplishment, project, publication or experience you would like to spotlight to the WGSS community?
A: I recently donated my late husband's jazz music and business archives to The Ohio State University. My late husband, Charles Fishman, was a GRAMMY award winning jazz music producer and was Dizzy Gillespie's famed jazz trumpeter, band leader, educator and personal manager for the last 13 years of his life. Together, Charlie and I co-founded the DC Jazz Festival, which is celebrating its 22nd year this Labor Day weekend. I named the collection the Shabbat Village, to honor Charlie's Jewish and my African heritages respectively, and the community we built. Charlie was also a classical jazz pianist and percussionist; and I have practiced intellectual property law and been an advocate for artist rights and cultural diplomacy.
Q: Can you share how you believe your time with WGSS prepared or benefited you in your current profession, artistic projects and/or activist work?
A: My major in Women's Studies completely prepared me to be a critical thinker, an advocate and a life-long student and researcher of chronic gender economic and health disparities. Q: What was your favorite moment participating in the 50th anniversary celebration weekend? A: Reconnecting with my Women's Studies' advisor, Professor Funow, who wrote my recommendation for law school! I got into the Georgetown University Law Center, my first choice and have been living and working in DC ever since! Q: Why is it important, now more than ever, to honor 50 years of WGSS at Ohio State given the current political moment? A: It is important to honor 50 years of WGSS because it has and will continue to provide analytical tools for understanding how gender operates in political systems and democratic institutions. Women's Studies is crucial in today’s political moment to highlight the significant disparities in women’s health, economic power and political leadership. WGSS continues to be a platform to educate, empower and support equity and respect for all who want to support gender justice holistically.
Healing through muralism
Our 50th celebration also included a space for our community to heal together. WGSS faculty member, Dr. Guisela Latorre, brought her expertise in Chicanx and Latin American muralism to guide participants through an art exercise. The group activity involved the co-creation of an art mural, which further expanded on the idea of the Formación mural found in the WGSS department’s foyer, a project led by Guisela herself. The mural was painted a decade ago by Chilean graffiti artist Marjorie "Gigi" Peñaililloas and serves as a representation of ambivalent, in-between and continually evolving states of being.
To encourage our own artistic expression, Guisela asked guests at the session to consider current events and feminism in these challenging times. They were then invited to further share with one another how they choose to cope and respond. Large sheets of paper were rolled out into the room, and markers busily created illustrations of survival, resistance, and joy. One person’s expression blended into another’s, and the mural came together as a community’s visual representation of healing. The collective processing of difficult thoughts and emotions, as well as the collaborative mural itself, demonstrates the persistence and endurance of our community, which is exactly what we’ll lean into as we navigate our next 50 years of WGSS.