This month, women take center stage around the world. At the University of New Mexico (UNM), the campus is honoring Women’s History Month with initiatives highlighting their brilliance.
How Women’s History Month Started?
In 1987, lawmakers officially designated Women’s History Month to celebrate women’s many women’s contributions to society. These contributions often escape mention in history books and other narratives. March was selected to match International Women’s Day on March 8, honoring women worldwide.
This celebration began as a weeklong observance. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter issued the first Presidential Proclamation, declaring the week of March 8 as National Women’s History Week. This move paved the way for the creation of Women’s History Month.
The UNM has celebrated women’s contributions since 1972, when it opened the Women’s Resource Center. The center provides advocacy, support and safe space for all members of the UNM and greater community.
Every March, UNM’s Anthropology Department highlights women’s contributions by gathering research, departments, events, and resources. It shares them on a dedicated webpage for the campus community.
UNM Initiatives That Celebrate Women’s Contributions
The Women’s Resource Center advocates for, supports, and provides a safe space for all members of UNM and the greater community. Using a feminist empowerment model, the center offers educational, social, and cultural programs. These efforts encourage women’s self-determination and community engagement. The Women’s Resource Center equips students with tools and resources to enhance success in their academic, personal, and professional lives.
Áine McCarthy is the director of the Women’s Resource Center. She joined UNM in 2020 as an advocate supporting student survivors on campus. She previously worked at Upaya Institute and Zen Center in Santa Fe as co-director of the Professional Buddhist Chaplaincy Training Program. McCarthy is also an ordained Buddhist chaplain with experience supporting women in prison. Additionally, she provides creative and contemplative programs helping women and femmes recover and grow after intimate partner violence.
Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program
The Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies program educates students about the relationships among identity, power, and knowledge toward the ends of social justice and empowerment. The program supports the development and application of new theories in feminist, queer and transgender studies throughout the university. It also applies feminist, queer, and transgender methods to critically evaluate scholarship and research in the disciplines.
Moreover, the program educates students to understand issues affecting people at local, regional, and global levels. It prepares them to respond effectively to these challenges.
Sarah Davis-Secord is the program director for the Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies program. She is an associate professor in the UNM Department of History. Her research focuses on the interactions of individuals and groups across religious and cultural divisions in the medieval Mediterranean region.
Gender and sexuality are fundamental and central components of all human interactions. Medieval Mediterranean historians have only recently begun investigating the roles of women, gender, and sexuality in cross-cultural encounters.
UNM Honors Women Scholars
- Barbara Rodriguez: She is a professor of speech and hearing sciences, and is the interim provost for Academic Affairs. Rodríguez co-directs CLASS for ALL-NM, a collaborative personnel preparation training grant. The project partners with New Mexico State University and is funded by the U.S. Department of Education. It is designed to train graduate students in bilingual speech-language pathology.
Rodriguez is the recipient of the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association’s (ASHA) Certificate for Special Contributions in Multicultural Affairs, an ASHA Diversity Champion, New Mexico Speech-Language and Hearing Association (NMSHA) Fellow and NMSHA Honors of the Association recipient. This remarkable woman has held a number of leadership positions on local and national professional boards.
- Melissa Emery Thompson: She is a professor of anthropology, co-director of the Comparative Human and Primate Physiology Center at UNM and co-director of the Kibale Chimpanzee Project in Uganda. Thompson was appointed assistant vice president for research in the UNM Provost office in the Fall of 2021.
She secured extensive research funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF). She leads a project funded by the National Institute on Aging. It studies the human aging process through research on chimpanzees.
- Tiffany S. Lee (Diné /Lakota): She is Dibé Łizhiní (Blacksheep) and born for Naałaní (Oglala Lakota). Lee is from Crystal, New Mexico, located on the Navajo Nation, on her mother’s side and Pine Ridge, South Dakota on her father’s side. She is a professor and former chair of Native American Studies at UNM. She earned her doctorate in Sociology of Education from Stanford University.
Her research examines Native youth perspectives on language reclamation and identity. She also investigates socio-culturally centered educational approaches. In 2016, the Spencer Foundation awarded her a grant. She used it to examine how Indigenous language immersion schools affect Native American student achievement.