Nancy Walker to Receive Mary Jane Werthen Award

Nancy A. Walker, director of the Women's Studies Program and professor of English, has been selected by the Margaret Cuninggim Women's Center to receive its 1995 Mary Jane Werthan Award.

The presentation will take place Wednesday, Oct. 18, in 126 Wilson Hall, preceding the Margaret Cuninggim Lecture.

Established in 1988 by the Center's Advisory Board and named for its first recipient, the Werthan Award "recognizes the debt that women at Vanderbilt owe to those individuals who have had the vision to see how things ought to be, the courage to persist in their hopes over time and the skills necessary to bring new attitudes and practices into being."

Formerly chair of the Department of Languages and Literature at Stephens College, Walker joined the Vanderbilt faculty in 1989 as associate professor of English and first director of the Women's Studies Program. She gained approval for a minor in women's studies after her first year. Having served more than her term as director of women's studies, she will step down from that role at the end of this year.

Walker, who was promoted to professor of English in 1992, specializes in American literature, particularly women writers of the 19th and 20th centuries, from Emily Dickinson and Kate Chopin to Eudora Welty and Toni Morrison. She also has a special interest in women and humor. Her publications in this area include "A Very Serious Thing: Women's Humor and American Culture" (1988) as well as numerous essays and editorships. Her most recent book, released in June, is "The Disobedient Writer: Women and Narrative Tradition."