The Next Nancy’s Chair
from the message of Dr. Carrie Dawson
The Nancy’s Chair was established in the mid-1980s by feminist and philanthropist Nancy Ruth to raise awareness of women’s issues. The Chair enables MSVU to host distinguished scholars and activists who have contributed to the advancement of women through their work in women, gender, and sexualities studies.
In connection to this, Dr. Carrie Dawson, MSVU’s Dean of Arts and Science shared the news that Dr. Adwoa Onuora has been appointed as the newxt Nancy’s Chair in Women’s Studies at MSVU. She will begin her two-year term on July 1, 2022.
Dr. Onuora is recognized as a leading scholar-activist within the women’s movement in Jamaica which makes her the best for the position. She is currently a Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor in Women and Gender Studies at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, in Jamaica, where she teaches about equity, social and gender justice. In 2017, she led the European Union-funded pilot time use survey on unpaid care work in Jamaica — the first of its kind in the English-speaking Caribbean.
Dr. Onuora has served on advisory groups such as the National Strategic Action Plan to end Gender-Based Violence Jamaica, the UN Women’s Regional Advisory Group on the Measurement of Sustainable Development Goal 5.4.1 (Unpaid Care Work), and the Jamaica National Steering Committee for Skills to Access the Green Economy (SAGE) program. She has been heavily involved in community-based groups calling for the decriminalization of abortion in Jamaica, and has been active in social justice advocacy around legal reform to Jamaica’s Sexual Offences Act, and related Acts that criminalize marginalized groups.
As Nancy’s Chair, Dr. Onuora will undertake a community-based research project examining the challenges faced by queer Afro-Canadian/Caribbean youth and their parents. Using the methodology of participatory comic, and through the creation of a social media knowledge hub for queer black youth and their parents, she hopes to promote queer positive parenting within Afro-Canadian/Caribbean communities. The project will aim to equip Afro-Caribbean parents with the tools to support queer Black youth who struggle with issues of belonging within their communities.
More to this story at https://www.msvu.ca/announcing-the-17th-nancys-chair-in-womens-studies-at-msvu/
Reference and photo credits to https://www.msvu.ca/
