Students to exhibit research on gender violence

Students enrolled in the course Gender Violence will curate a gallery walk of their research from 5-7 p.m. Tuesday, April 30 in the McKillop Library. The exhibit will include data, narratives, poems and images that capture the human dimension of the issues that students explored this semester.

There will also be opportunities for attendees to share their thoughts about the ways that Salve Regina can continue to work for a campus and a world that is attentive to the critical concerns of mercy. The project was conceptualized and implemented by the students in an effort to share their learning, applied research and the subjective experiences of violence.

Dr. Laura O’Toole’s course SOA420: Gender Violence explores the personal, organizational, community and institutional factors that contribute to many forms of gendered violence through the lens of intersectionality.

The course requires students to design and implement a campus event during Sexual Assault Awareness Month. This year’s class chose the title “Gender Violence: Humanizing Experiences Behind the Data.” The students see their research project as a way to link the human experience of gendered violence to their own data – personal narratives and the voluntary responses to the survey – along with national data on the various manifestations of gendered violence.

“Applying what we have learned through the creation, implementation and dissemination of findings from a social science research project is an important element of upper level classes in the sociology and anthropology major,” O’Toole said. “Projects that also benefit our campus and local communities are an important way to share what we learn in the hope that we can become better attuned to the human cost of social problems, and in this case, to connect the dots between violence in its many manifestations and gender roles and relations in society. The students have developed the concept with amazing creativity, passion and motivation to make us all more aware of sexual assault and to feel supported to work for personal and social change on our campus.”