During the 2019-2020 academic year, Hope College’s Women’s & Gender Studies students won several college-wide and academic awards. We are excited to celebrate WGS students’ accomplishments! Each student is featured with a photo of their choosing, the award they won, and a quote that inspires their feminist scholarship.
Madeleine Zimmerman (’20) won the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Scholars in the Arts and Humanities award and was awarded membership into the Phi Beta Kappa honors society. Maddie’s quote features the words of Audre Lorde–a black feminist, lesbian, poet activist.
“[W]e have been taught either to ignore our differences, or to view them as causes for separation and suspicion rather than as forces for change. Without community there is no liberation… But community must not mean a shedding of our differences, nor the pathetic pretense that these differences do not exist.”
Audre Lorde
Emily Wolfe (’20) won the Excellence in Scholarship Award and the A.A. Raven Prize in Communication. Emily’s quote also features the words of Audre Lorde.
“Your silence will not protect you.”
Audre Lorde
Sage Mikkelsen won the Center for Ministry Studies Lilly Scholars award. Sage’s quote is the closing lines from black feminist scholar bell hooks’ famous book, Feminism is for Everybody.
“Feminist politics aims to end domination to free us to be who we are — to live lives where we love justice, where we can live in peace. Feminism is for everybody.”
bell hooks
Corri Zimmerman won the James M. Zoetewey Political Science Sophomore Book Award. Corri’s quote by black feminist scholar bell hooks focuses on intersectional feminism.
“The process begins with the individual woman’s acceptance that American women, without exception, are socialized to be racist, classist and sexist, in varying degrees, and that labeling ourselves feminists does not change the fact that we must consciously work to rid ourselves of the legacy of negative socialization.”
bell hooks
Greer Gardner won the Theatre Department Sophomore Award. Greer’s quote borrows the voice of a great literary character.
“I intend to make my own way in the world.”
Jo March in Greta Gerwig’s (2019) rendition of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women
Gracyn Carter won the James M. Zoetewey Political Science Sophomore Book Award. Gracyn’s quote by Nigerian author and feminist advocate Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie highlights the role that people play in creating culture and the potential we have to create better lives for everyone.
“Culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture.”
“We Should All Be Feminists” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie