229-333-5800 September 8, 2010
10-144
Communications Specialist
Women's and Gender Studies 2010 Lecture Series
VALDOSTA -- Valdosta State University’s Department of Women’s
and Gender Studies will host three speakers during fall 2010. All
lectures are free to the public See below for a detailed list of
topics and speakers.
6 p.m. Monday, Sept. 13
Student Union Theater
“Borders, Immigrants, and National Values: Shaping Immigration
Policy to Benefit Everyone”
West Costgrove is the founder and executive director of Project
Puente in El Paso, Texas, an educational project along the United
States and Mexican borders. There, he addresses the realities of
economic and political injustice arising from globalizing nations.
For nearly thirty years, Costgrove has been politically active in
American and Latin American diplomacy. His lecture at VSU will
focus on illegal immigration.
6:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 11
Student Union Theater
“Human Trafficking: Modern Day Slavery”
Nola Theiss, former mayor of Sanibel Fla., is the founder and
executive director of Human Trafficking Awareness Partnership and
the founding chair of the Coalition Against Human Trafficking in
Southwest Florida. Her most recent awareness effort is the HTAP
ARTREACH program, which educates girls about the dangers of human
trafficking taking place through art projects. Theiss has devoted
the past six years of her life to help spreading awareness about
human trafficking by utilizing her skills as a writer, educator,
administrator, public official and scholar.
6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 2
Student Union Ballroom
“If I Should Die Before I Wake: Women Aging In Prison”
Writer/activist Kathleen O’Shea is a nun, a Pulitzer Prize nominee,
and a social worker who focuses her research on female prisoners,
particularly ones on death row. She describes herself as a teacher,
writer, activist and lecturer. Some of her published works include:
Female Offenders: An Annotated Bibliography in 1997, Women and the
Death Penalty in the United States 1900-1998, in 1999, and Women on
Death Row: Revelations From Both Sides of the Bars, in May 2000.
Her devoted work with women on death row has inspired filmmakers to
create documentaries and plays based on her research.
