Vanderbilt University - Women's and Gender Studies

Our alumni often write to us about how they have found their degree useful in the real world but also about how the very experience of being in a feminist classroom proved to be life-changing. In fact, they transfer their intellectual skills into new work spaces and environments in order to make them more inclusive and diverse. According to one graduate, "to employers, my having a women's studies background meant that I probably had a good awareness of diversity issues, a key perspective when developing new services . . . "

While many students pursue higher degrees in Law, Medicine, Health, and Literature, to name a few, others have found employment in a variety of professional arenas:

    • Publishing
    • Alternative healing and wellness
    • Social policy research and activism
    • Program management (e.g. Girl Scout Council, Habitat for Humanity)
    • Human resource management
    • Grassroots advocacy
    • Teaching and mentoring
    • Career counseling in high schools and universities
    • Library and archives management
    • Non-profit resource management and fund raising
    • Journalism
    • Public relations and marketing

After graduation, CHRISTINA BAULCH (’05) moved to Washington, D.C., to accept a position with the Public Leadership Education Network (PLEN) as Program Assistant. She works with all aspects of the organization, including planning trainings, preparing materials, and working with its Web site.

MELISSA BESKE (’04) is currently a second-year graduate student pursuing her Ph.D. in cultural anthropology at Tulane University in New Orleans, LA. Her research focuses on gender and violence among the Creole and Mestizo populations of western Belize. She has also recently completed research with local midwives in Carhuaz, Peru, and with New Orleans street musicians, both before and after Hurricane Katrina.

BRONWEN BLASS (’00) is still working at Wilmer Hale in Washington, D.C., and is thrilled to report that she just married Jeremy Works, whom she met through friends from Vanderbilt. He is a Dartmouth grad currently working as an international development consultant. The couple live in Takoma Park, Maryland.

WHITNEY BULLOCK (’04) is in her last semester of graduate studies at Rice University. She will graduate with a Master of Music in Viola Performance on May 14, 2006. She is currently playing with the Symphony of Southeast Texas, teaching viola privately, and auditioning with orchestras in the hopes of a job in a professional symphony.

CHERYL CIOFFARI (’04) is currently a second-year Master’s student in Community and Regional Planning at the University of Texas at Austin. Upon graduation this May, Cheryl expects to remain in Austin establishing her career and enacting change within the planning community.

MELODY CROWDER-MEYER (’04) is currently a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Politics at Princeton University, where she does research. In May she will celebrate her second wedding anniversary to Douglas Meyer, a KC-10 pilot and soon-to-be captain in the United States Air Force.

TRACY ELKUS LUREY (’98) is a judicial law clerk in Atlanta, Georgia, and is married to Alex Lurey (’97).

STACIE FURIA (’03) is in her third year of graduate school at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She recently filed her Master’s thesis, titled “Bomb Shells on Film Reels: How Women in Military Movies Enact Hegemonic Gender Ideologies,” and has already begun work on her dissertation project.

SARAH GRAHAM (’04) works for “the man” at the Nashville District Attorney’s Office as a domestic violence victim-witness coordinator. She’s happy to remain in Nashville where she enjoys her challenging work – and being able to hear live bluegrass music seven days a week.

SUZANNE GROSSMAN (’98) is currently working in New York City for Zagat Survey in the Corporate Sales Custom Publishing group. Feel free to email her at Suzanne_grossman@yahoo.com.

JESSICA HEAVEN (’04) lives in Washington, D.C., where she works at a nonprofit called Equal Justice Works. She will be attending Georgetown Law in the fall of 2006.

LANNA HILL (’98) is an associate at the law firm of Shea Stokes & Carter in Atlanta, Georgia. Lanna specializes in employment law for the hospitality industry.

JENNIFER HOWARD (’02), who earned a Master’s in Women’s Studies from George Washington University in 2004, is currently working at the Center for Social Concerns at the University of Notre Dame, coordinating service-learning opportunities for students. She plans to start a Master’s degree in Nonprofit Administration this summer. She hopes to be back in Washington, D.C., working with a fabulous nonprofit in two years, when her boyfriend finishes law school.

During the Summer of 2005, PATRICE JACKSON (’05) accepted a senior intern position with the Georgia Birth Network for eight weeks, through which she worked on her certification to become a doula, or birth assistant.

LINDSAY KEE (’98) is currently in the Master of Professional Writing program at the University of Southern California, where she is studying fiction, poetry, and screenwriting.

SARAH LAWRENCE (’04) is still living in Washington, D.C., enjoying the city and getting more familiar with it all the time.

OBIANUJU RITA MBAMALU (’05) is a first-year dental student at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

EBIE MCFARLAND (’03) is currently working at Webster & Associates Public Relations in Nashville, Tennessee, representing clients Van Zant, Hank Williams, Jr., Aaron Tippin, Collin Raye, Vanilla Ice, and more. If you are interested in interning or learning more about PR in the music field, please contact Ebie at 615.777.6995 x25.

After graduation, MARY JANE PHILPY (’05) caught up on the sleep she lost in the past four years at her family’s lakehouse outside of Austin. In the fall of 2005, she headed to graduate school in Women’s Studies at Texas Woman’s University in Denton, north of Dallas. She has been looking forward to new classes and peers, but “will certainly have a distinct place in [her] heart for Vanderbilt’s Women’s & Gender Studies Program (students, advisors, and faculty).”

JENNIFER SNYDER (’93) is a family physician in Lakewood, Ohio, at Lakewood Hospital, which is part of the Cleveland Clinic. She continues to do obstetrics in her family practice, which has become very rare in Ohio because of the malpractice situation. She has two children, daughter Jordan (9) and son Parker (7), who keep her “just as busy, if not more,” than her career.

SARA SWIFT THARPE (’98) is currently living in Greencastle, IN. She and her husband, Brad, also a Vanderbilt alumnus, had their first child in August. Jonah Swift Tharpe was born August 17, 2005. Sara is enjoying spending time with Jonah and working part-time with her church youth group.

NICOLE TAYLOR (’01) graduated from law school in May 2005, and is working for King and Spalding LLP in Washington, D.C.

RACHEL WAGNER (’00) is currently working as a drug and alcohol rehabilitation therapist. She will finish class this spring for her Ph.D. in Family Therapy. Also this summer she will marry Lance Koppa in Tuscany, Italy.

NIKKI L. WWILLIAMS (’03) is currently a second-year law student at the University of Cincinnati College of Law.

PAMELA D. WILLIAMS (’04) and her husband, James Cheers, still live in Urbana, Illinois. They really enjoy all of the cultural benefits of living in a college town. Pamela has been admitted to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for a Master's Degree in Human Resource Education. She looks forward to balancing school and continuing her work at the U of I as a documentation specialist for the HR Front End Project.

JESSI VERNON (’04) is currently living in Seattle, WA. She challenges oil dependency and the war machine by bicycling everyday for transportation and recreation. She recently returned from an alternative Spanish language school in Mexico where she studied Spanish and queer activism/history. She volunteers weekly with Food Not Bombs and a local anarchist bookstore.