- Meet the Instructional Team
- Meet the Student Content Producers
- Credits and Acknowledgements
Meet the Instructional Team
Professor Lauren Duncan
Professor Lauren Duncan will be the primary instructor for this course, a course she has taught at Smith College for seventeen years. Professor Lauren Duncan is Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at Smith College. She received a Ph.D. in Personality Psychology and a Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies from the University of Michigan. A passionate and award-winning teacher, Lauren offers courses in Political Psychology, the Psychology of Women and Gender, and the Psychology of Political Activism. Her scholarly research focuses on two questions: (1) What motivates some people to want to change society whereas others want to keep it the same? (2) What motivates some people interested in political and social issues to act on their beliefs? This course is based on an advanced seminar course that Lauren has taught for seventeen years.
Discussion Forum Moderators
The instructional team will also include one current Smith student and one recent Smith alumna; both of whom are former students of Professor Duncan’s face-to-face Psychology of Political Activism seminar.
Psychology / English
Psychology
Meet the Student Content Producers
Students from Lauren Duncan's PSY 374, Spring 2015
Part of what makes this course unique is that the Smith College and Mount Holyoke College students who took Lauren Duncan’s face-to-face Psychology of Political Activism seminar at Smith during the Spring of 2015 helped to create the course content. The students selected one of the nine activists profiled in this course to study intensively over the course of the semester. They spent four hours in the Smith College Archives each week, sorting through and studying the activists’ materials in order to help create the digital biographical timelines that we are using. Some of the students were able to meet with their chosen activists when we brought them to campus for their video interviews.
Economics
Study of Women and Gender
Psychology
Religion
Neuroscience
Study of Women and Gender
Government
Psychology
Psychology
International Relations
(Mount Holyoke College)
Psychology
Biology
Government
Minor in Ethics
Government
Psychology
(Mount Holyoke College)
Psychology / Africana Studies
Credits & Acknowledgements
In her book, Rethinking American Women’s Activism, historian Annelise Orleck highlights peace activist Grace Paley’s acknowledgment of the many kinds of labor needed to make change (never all visible):
"[Paley] knew that she had contributed to change by protesting, speaking out and writing. But she insisted that the unglamourous work was just as important. 'You still have to stuff the envelopes…'" (Prologue xi)
The creation of this MOOC is the result of many hands and voices, all willing to participate in the less visible but crucial work needed in its shaping and production.
We want to acknowledge the following individuals in our Smith Community, without whom this course would not exist: Kathleen McCartney, President of Smith College; Katherine Rowe, Provost and Dean of the Faculty, Smith College; David Gregory, former CIO, Smith College. In addition, this MOOC was made possible through a donation from Madeleine Morgan Fackler, Smith Class of 1980 and Steve Fackler.
Additional gratitude to:
The staff of Special Collections (past and present) who lent their incredible and deep expertise on the collections to this project. It is their stewardship and commitment to women’s history which laid the foundation for the archival components. The Voices of Feminism Collection sparked and continues to generate interest in current women’s activism. We drew on this work most notably for the the activists’ bios and the oral history transcripts provided in the course.
The activists who chose to entrust their papers and the legacy of their work with the Sophia Smith Collection.
The students who thoughtfully and meticulously worked on the activist timelines post-creation for accuracy and to obtain permissions.
The Libraries digitization team, staff and students, who swiftly and artfully ensured all materials were represented in digital form.
The countless women who have done the quiet and often unrecognized work of powering movements but whose names have not been recorded.
Finally, recognition of the following individuals who were involved directly in the creation of this course:
Core Project Team
Lauren Duncan, Professor and Chair of Psychology
Deborah Keisch, Instructional Technologist, Educational Technology Services
Tom Laughner, Director of Educational Technology Services
Kate Lee, Senior Media Producer, Educational Technology Services
Tammy Lockett, Instructional Designer, Educational Technology Services
Beth Myers, Director of Special Collections, Library
Jen Rajchel, Special Collections Project Manager, Library
Stacey Schmeidel, Media Relations Director, College Relations
Special Consultant
Loretta Ross, Human Rights Activist
Additional Contributors
Joe Bacal, Applications Administrator, Educational Technlology Services
Dan Bennett, Media Producer, Educational Technology Services
Cheryl Dellecese, Associate Director of Print/New Media, College Relations
Rob Eveleigh, Five College Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Coordinator
Jeff Heath, Video Technologies Administrator
Alec Hoverman, Content Editor
Laurie Fenlason, Vice President for Public Affairs and Strategic Initiatives
Laura Rauscher, Director of Disability Services
Lisa Roberge, Office of Disability Services
Students in Smith College’s PSY 374
Mark Umstot, Assistant to the CIO, Information Technology Services
Eric Weld, Project and Publicity Administrator, Kahn Institute
Marlene Znoy, Library Systems Supervisor, Library
Reference
Orleck, A. (2014). Rethinking American women's activism. New York: Routledge.