From the Desk of the Chancellor, March 1, 2010

Chancellor Charles R. Bantz View print-quality image

Women’s History Month begins today. The national theme is “Writing Women Back into History.” That is an outlook close to my heart. My great-aunt Ethel Dowdell Abild was a South Dakota teacher-author-historian born in 1888. I once read a paper she wrote on Calamity Jane (including her memory of meeting her). Through her 90s, she traveled, presented papers, and published articles on pioneer history and her life. This lifelong historian was a lifelong learner—and her example made me one.

IUPUI will have a series of events this month about the history of women. Today, at 6 p.m., A’Lelia Bundles, the biographer and great - great granddaughter of Madam C. J. Walker will speak in the Campus Center, Room 450. A’Lelia Bundles was an honorary degree recipient at IUPUI’s commencement ceremonies in May 2003 and is a history-maker in her own right.

And our students are at work writing women back into history. IUPUI public history students Casey Schuster and Hilary Retseck wrote profiles of women racecar drivers for the Women in Racing Traveling Exhibit that opened at the Daytona 500 last month. The students are working on the project as a one-year internship with the Henry Ford Museum, IRL driver Lyn St. James, and the Women in the Winner’s Circle Foundation.

For many more events related to women’s history, leadership, and development, search “women” at the Happening at IUPUI site.

Comments? Write chancllr@iupui.edu.