by Vanessa L. Faz, Adjunct Professor of Government 

During the academic year of 2020-2021, I had the pleasure and opportunity to be a participant in the Faculty Learning Community in Global Gender and Women’s Studies in collaboration with ACC and the University of Texas at Austin-Hemispheres.

As a participant, we were tasked with researching and implementing a program or assignment that would help generate awareness of the issues that women face globally. I currently teach dual credit United States Government GOVT 2305 and was excited to incorporate a Making Connections on Indigenous Women in Politics around the United States and the Globe. My students did an excellent job in conforming and presenting their choices of Indigenous Women through PowerPoint presentations.

I am thankful for all the various guest speakers that were afforded to us during the course of this project starting back in the Fall of 2020 to the Spring of 2021. To see the changes in how women have been affected globally is essential to the projects that I had my students complete such that I wanted to bring additional awareness to an underrepresented population of influential women who are now involved in making day-to-day decisions on how our government is operated.

I was anticipating participating in the Global and Gender Studies in Global Education; however, I missed the deadline. I would like to highly recommend anyone take part in this great opportunity and continue to grow and learn from our peers and fellow partnering institutions.

Some of the sources that I used for my research include:

Golden, Hallie. “‘She’s representing all of us’: the story behind Deb Haaland’s swearing-in dress.” The Guardian. March 23, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/23/deb-haaland-swearing-in-skirt-dress-agnes-woodward Accessed Date 6 May 2021.

“Indigenous People, Democracy, and Political Participation. ” Political Database of the Americas. 1995. Georgetown University Political Database of the Americans. https://pdba.georgetown.edu/IndigenousPeoples/introduction.html. Accessed Date 5 April 2021.

“Indigenous Women Booklet.” Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.” 2017 https://www.oas.org/en/iachr/indigenous/docs/pdf/Brochure-MujeresIndigenas-en.pdf. Accessed Date 4 May 2021