Arts & Sciences Professors Present Research Online

Professors virtually discuss grief, feminism and more at annual College of Arts & Sciences Conference

Sacred Heart University’s fourth annual College of Arts & Sciences Conference (CASCon) looked different this year. It took place online, split into three, 55-minute sessions with multiple Zoom breakout rooms available.

More than 40 faculty members from multiple disciplines including languages & literature, psychology, biology, mathematics, government, Catholic studies, art & design, communication studies, media studies and sociology participated in the conference. There were 25 talks in all, covering such varied topics as grief, feminism, musical theater, social media, global climate and pharmaceuticals.

Associate professors Suzanne Marmo and Patricia Carl-Stannard, from the School of Social Work, discussed, “Teaching Grief and Loss to Students Online: How to have presence without being present.” They spoke about teaching online Master of Social Work (MSW) students about life, loss and transition when its premise is so heavily reliant on human interaction. The course goal is to raise students’ professional awareness and to show how to establish a safe space through presence and self-awareness. The class is split into four sections: identifying types of loss, loss as a result of trauma, loss as a result of illness and assessing the role of spirituality in coping. Marmo and Carl-Stannard posed the question, “How do we transfer this content to online? Is online the right place to teach about grief, loss and bereavement?”

Understanding that modern-day students are used to blocking out what they don’t like, online content must be attention-grabbing and engaging. Yet, MSW work is so emotionally challenging, Marmo and Carl-Stannard had to find a way to engage students with uncomfortable material in a safe environment. Part of teaching grief and loss in the classroom, they said, is establishing a safe space and ownership of class. So, before the course begins, Marmo and Carl-Stannard ask their students what a safe space in the online classroom means to them and require them to commit to their classmates’ confidentiality. They also teach netiquette and provide peer support networks, which they call peer cafés. These are small groups within Blackboard where students can have discussions within their group, and the only outsiders with access are Marmo and Carl-Stannard.

Another presentation, titled, “The F-Word: Unpacking and Demystifying ‘Feminism,’” was divided into sociology, history and Catholic studies. Amanda Moras, associate professor and associate dean for success at the College of Arts & Sciences, began the talk with an examination of intersectional feminism. Moras spoke about Black women being excluded from feminist scholarship in the past. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, one of the pioneers of feminism in the 1800s, often left out Black women, she said.

Moras explained that the Black feminist movement goes back as far as the feminist movement itself. During this time, white women often compared themselves to slaves, referring to marriage as slavery. However, she said, these women failed to take into consideration how Black women were dealing with achieving women’s rights and civil rights at the same time. At the first national Women’s Rights Convention in 1851, Sojourner Truth gave her famous “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech, highlighting that all women did not share the same comfort as white, middle-class and bourgeoisie women.

Kelly Marino, assistant history lecturer, spoke about early feminism in Connecticut, starting with the Connecticut Women’s Suffrage Association in 1869, now one of the oldest suffrage groups in the country. This organization was successful in achieving some gains but struggled to attain voting rights. It was also very slow-moving and faced harsh opposition. While Connecticut’s voting majority today comprises Democrats and liberals, said Marino, in the early 1900s it was mainly conservative, rural Republican, pro-business and more reluctant to change. Moreover, Republican leader John Henry Roraback, who opposed the suffrage movement, was beloved by both Republicans and Democrats, so the suffrage movement had difficulty gaining traction.

Additionally, she continued, many Connecticut residents supported women’s-suffrage opponent Woodrow Wilson as president because he traveled to Lyme frequently and many knew him personally. This, too, stifled the movement. When suffragists started making strides by World War I, opponents turned to use more political-based talk, saying suffragists supported birth control and other highly controversial issues. Nevertheless, in September of 1920, Connecticut became the 37th state to ratify the 19th Amendment, solidifying women’s right to vote across the country.

Jillian Plummer, assistant Catholic studies lecturer, explored how Catholic sisters formed feminist identities in the late twentieth century even though the hierarchy of the Catholic Church voiced its opposition to this development. In 2012, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith formally condemned the feminism of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious specifically targeting its stands on the LGBTQ community and abortion.

Plummer discussed Sister Rose Dalle Tezze, an Italian-American Catholic sister who embraced a feminist identity and used this identity to inform her larger social justice agenda as an example of this larger development in the Catholic Church. Interested in equality in the church and society, Rose attended conferences about women’s ordination and the marginalization of women in the global south. In 1980, she ran for political office and attended a conference for women involved in politics. Her work could be categorized three ways, Plummer said: resisting the institutional church, working with marginalized women and reconstructing the church as a community to include women.