Social Issues
In 1869 the Northwestern University Board of Trustees voted to admit women as students. This academic year we are commemorating 150 years of women at Northwestern, to celebrate the individuals who have taken risks, charted their own course and inspired great change.
Northwestern students, alumni and professors share insights into their research and performance around the world.
Northwestern researcher Galen Bodenhausen says that despite women’s political gains, an economic crisis can spark gender stereotyping.
Sahar Jamal, founder of Maziwa, is creating a battery-powered breast pump so new mothers in East Africa can return to work. Maziwa’s design includes a cooler and pump so that women can collect and store breast milk even if they have no access to electricity or refrigeration, and the pump’s sleek, compact design also allows women to pump more discreetly.
After earning her performance studies master's degree, actor and writer Ashley Nicole Black ’08 MS became a TV star. She hopes her career sets an example for other diverse voices.
Northwestern alumna Jolene Loetscher ’01, namesake of South Dakota's Jolene's Law, spearheaded a campaign to end child sexual abuse in South Dakota. Loetscher, a former TV reporter and CEO of Mud Mile Communications, was named a 2019 Presidential Leadership Scholar.
Villy Wang ’90 JD founded the Bayview-Hunters Point Center for Arts and Technology (BAYCAT), a nonprofit social enterprise in San Francisco that helps young people from low-income communities capture and tell untold stories and create social change.
After overcoming adversity in her own life, Jade Maze ’08 MMus is mentoring promising musicians at the Merit School of Music, a community music school in Chicago that serves talented youth in its tuition-free college-prep conservatory.
Pulitzer Prize–winning author and Northwestern professor of English Natasha Trethewey’s beloved mother died decades ago, and yet her grave, down in Mississippi, remains unmarked by a headstone. The reasons for this are varied and complicated, and they speak to the essence of Trethewey, one of the most acclaimed poets of our time.
The chipmunks were giving Hank Adams ’99 MBA a headache, tearing up the garden in his Evanston backyard. So he started looking for an indoor alternative but was not impressed by the options.
