The Blanche, Edith, and Irving Laurie Chair in Women’s Studies at Douglass Residential College

The Blanche, Edith, and Irving Laurie Chair in Women’s Studies brings cutting edge scholars and practitioners to campus to share research, give public lectures and interact with students and faculty associated with Douglass Residential College, the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and the Institute for Women’s Leadership Consortium.

Occupants of the Blanche, Edith, and Irving Laurie Chair in Women’s Studies at Douglass Residential College have included among others: Isabel Wilkerson, Susan Martin, June Cross, Deborah Zimmerman, Dazon Dixon Diallo, Alison Jagger, Carol Gilligan, Charlotte Bunch, Paula Giddings, Jacqueline Pitanguy, Svetlana Slapsak, Molara Ogundipe Leslie, Karen Barad, Michele Wallace, Florence Butegwa, Helen Caldicott, Nancy Hartsock and Diana Tietjens Meyers.

For more information about the Blanche, Edith and Irving Laurie New Jersey Chair in Women’s Studies, contact Lisa Hetfield at lisahet@iwl.rutgers.edu.

Origins

In 1984, The Blanche, Edith and Irving Laurie New Jersey Chair in Women's Studies was established at Douglass College, Rutgers University after the state legislature, with Governor Thomas H. Kean’s support, approved and funded it. The Chair, the first of its kind in the nation, was created to bring outstanding scholars and practitioners in women's studies to campus to conduct their research and interact with students. At Governor Kean’s suggestion that the Chair should be a public/private partnership, Douglass College sought and received a gift of $250,000 from New Brunswick philanthropist Irving Laurie to endow the Chair. In the Governor’s official remarks during the 1985 dedication ceremony, he called the establishment of the Laurie Chair a “shining example of public and private cooperation."