Women’s History Month

Celebrate Women’s History Month 2024 with the Women’s Leadership and Resource Center!

Promotional poster: A photo of Dr. Aginah M. Muhammad with text describing the event (same info on this page). In the bottom left corner is a group of women.
Promotional poster: A photo of Dr. Aginah M. Muhammad with text describing the event (same info on this page). In the bottom left corner is a group of women.

Women’s History Month Breakfast

Tuesday, March 5, 2024
9-10:30am
Student Center East, Cardinal Room

Join WLRC and the CHANCE Program for a special breakfast in celebration of Women’s History Month! Our guest speaker will be Dr. Aginah M. Muhammad, Assistant Vice Provost for Student Success at UIC.

As an alum of UIC, Dr. Muhammad is a transformative leader with nearly 25 years of educational experience. Her passion for education is a driving force to her commitment to student success. Dr. Muhammad’s research focuses on the impact of mentorship on Black women. She is an accomplished author and host of the LITE It Up podcast, emphasizing women’s leadership, transformation, and empowerment.

Promotional poster: Photos of Dr. Natalie Bennett and Kim Ricardo, with text describing the event (same info on this page). At the top is a yellow fingerprint and
Promotional poster: Photos of Dr. Natalie Bennett and Kim Ricardo, with text describing the event (same info on this page). At the top is a yellow fingerprint and "Authentic You: Diversity Week 2024" on a dark blue background.

The Broken Rung: How Sexism Undermines

Wednesday, March 6, 2024
12-1pm
UIC Law School, Goldberg Court Room

Join WLRC’s director, Dr. Natalie Bennett, and Kim Ricardo, Associate Dean of Experiential Education at UIC Law, for a discussion exploring how gender roles impact professional settings and personal development.

Presented as part of UIC Law’s annual Diversity Week. This year’s theme is Authentic You: How You Can Be a Professional While Being True to Yourself.

WLRC staff will also be onsite to share info about WLRC and CAN’s programs and opportunities. Please stop by our table before and after the discussion!

Promotional poster: Black and red text on a white background describing the event (same info on this page). On the left are photos of the featured speakers.
Promotional poster: Black and red text on a white background describing the event (same info on this page). On the left are photos of the featured speakers.

Australian Women Representing Diplomacy, Entrepreneurship, Performing Arts, and Technology

Friday, March 8, 2024
12-1:30pm
UIC Innovation Center

Celebrate International Women’s Day by joining us for a panel discussion and lunch hosted by the UIC Innovation Center, Gender and Women’s Studies Program, and Women’s Leadership and Resource Center in conjunction with the Australian Consulate-General Chicago.

Speakers:

  • Suzanne McCourt, Chief Congressional Liaison Officer, Australian Embassy, Washington D.C.
  • Debbie Sharpe, Owner, The Goddess and Grocer and The Goddess Rocks! Catering
  • Carolyn Watson, Music Director, La Porte County Symphony Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor, Kansas City Chamber Orchestra
  • Emily Wilcox, Chief Operating Officer, Practifi
Promotional poster: A collage of women urban planners, washed in a purple-blue gradient. White text on top of the collage reads,
Promotional poster: A collage of women urban planners, washed in a purple-blue gradient. White text on top of the collage reads, "50 Years of Women in Planning." Below that are details about the event (same info on this page).

50 Years of Women in Planning

Tuesday, March 12, 2024
3-4:30pm
Women’s Leadership and Resource Center & Zoom

Join us for an exciting panel discussion exploring how the role of women in urban planning has evolved over the past 50 years, hosted in celebration of the Urban Planning and Policy department’s 50th anniversary and Women’s History Month!

Speakers:

  • Cecile DeMello, Team Englewood
  • Alisha Garcia Flores, Enlace Chicago
  • Yasmine Dukan, UIC Gender and Sexuality Center
  • Ann Barnds, Community organizer
  • Marlita White, Chicago Department of Human Services

Co-sponsored by the Urban Planning and Policy Department, College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs, Gender and Women’s Studies, Society of Undergrad Urban and Policy Students, and Coalition of Urban Planning Ph.D. Students.

Promotional poster: A variety of art-related items, including paint, a palette, theatre masks, brushes, sheet music, a microphone, and an origami crane, scattered around the edges. In the center is text describing the Artist Room event (same info on this page).
Promotional poster: A variety of art-related items, including paint, a palette, theatre masks, brushes, sheet music, a microphone, and an origami crane, scattered around the edges. In the center is text describing the Artist Room event (same info on this page).

The Artist Room

Wednesday, March 13, 2024
2-3:30pm
Women’s Leadership and Resource Center

We invite women and nonbinary student artists to come together and discuss what it means for us to be artists. While crafting as a group, we will discuss questions such as

  • What does being an artist mean for us socially?
  • What does it mean to us personally?
  • What does it mean to pursue art as a hobby vs. a career?
  • How does CADA/UIC affirm our identities as women and nonbinary people?
  • What are the challenges that we face?

Join us for this student-focused and student-facilitated session. You do not have to be an art major to participate. Supplies and snacks will be provided!

Promotional poster: Purple text on a tan background describing the event (same info on this page). In the center are photos of the featured speakers. At the bottom is the Chicago skyline with buildings in a rainbow of colors. Multicolored swirls are at the top and bottom.
Promotional poster: Purple text on a tan background describing the event (same info on this page). In the center are photos of the featured speakers. At the bottom is the Chicago skyline with buildings in a rainbow of colors. Multicolored swirls are at the top and bottom.

Making Spaces: Lesbians Imagining and Building Community in Chicago

Tuesday, March 26, 2024
3-5pm
Latino Cultural Center

We invite you to a panel exploring what happens when Lesbians decide to come together to build something–a team, an organization, a movement, an intervention–as well as the joys and the challenges in sustaining them, and the ways Lesbians have helped us develop tools for constructing a more livable city and world.

Hosted by the Women’s Leadership and Resource Center, Gender and Sexuality Center, Gender and Women’s Studies, and Honors College.

Promotional poster: A Chicago bus stop with a Pilsen Latina Legacies billboard on the side. The billboard features a Latina woman and text reading,
Promotional poster: A Chicago bus stop with a Pilsen Latina Legacies billboard on the side. The billboard features a Latina woman and text reading, "Latina History is Chicago History." Below that is text describing the program (same info on this page).

Chicago Monuments Project: Pilsen Latina Legacies

Thursday, March 28, 2024
12-2pm
Latino Cultural Center

Join us for an ARTivism workshop to honor and learn about the Festival de Mujeres 1979 and envision a monument to Latina legacies in Pilsen. This historic, Latina-led street festival was organized by the community group Mujeres Latinas en Acción in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago’s West Side.

Participants will learn more about the Pilsen Latina Legacies Project and the Festival and engage in a zine activity to gather ideas for a future monument that centers the history of Pilsen Latinas in Chicago. We will engage with Festival co-organizer, 2023 Latinx Artist Fellow, and Pilsen Latina Legacies Lead Artist, Diana Solís, and Professor Hinda Seif, PhD (University of Illinois at Springfield).

Presented by WLRC and the Latino Cultural Center. Co-sponsored by Latin American and Latino Studies, Museum and Exhibition Studies, and Gender and Women’s Studies.

Promotional poster: Lizzie Borden, framed by segments of film. Below her photo is text describing the event (same info on this page) on a teal background.
Promotional poster: Lizzie Borden, framed by segments of film. Below her photo is text describing the event (same info on this page) on a teal background.

Art & Activism: Filmmaker Lizzie Borden

Thursday, March 28, 2024
2-3:30pm
Chicago Justice Gallery

Join us for an intimate conversation about art and activism with filmmaker Lizzie Borden, facilitated by GWS Assistant Professor Freda Fair and featuring GWS undergraduate students Baeyoung Yoo and Parisa Gharavi, PhD student in History and GWS graduate student concentrator Liliana Macias, and students from CADA.

Then, join us at the the Gene Siskel Film Center for screenings and discussions of her iconic films.

For additional March events hosted by the Women’s Leadership and Resource Center, please visit our Events page.

Other Campus WHM Events Heading link

Promotional poster: A calendar listing of UIC Women's History Month events.
Promotional poster: A calendar listing of UIC Women's History Month events.

Women in Law Panel
Hosted by Women’s Law Caucus
Wednesday, March 6, 2024
5pm | Law School

International Women’s Day Inspire Inclusion Dinner
Hosted by Equity in Engineering Program & Women in Engineering Programs
Friday, March 8, 2024
4-6:30pm | Student Center East, Illinois Room

Women’s Business Conference
Hosted by United Women’s Network
Wednesday, March 13, 2024
3-7pm | Student Center East, Illinois Room

Lizzie Borden: Regrouping
Hosted by Gender and Women’s Studies & College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts
Thursday, March 28, 2024
6-8pm | Gene Siskel Film Center

Lizzie Borden: Born In Flames
Hosted by Gender and Women’s Studies & College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts
Thursday, March 28, 2024
8:30-10:30pm | Gene Siskel Film Center

Lizzie Borden: Working Girls
Hosted by Gender and Women’s Studies & College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts
Friday, March 29, 2024
6-8pm | Gene Siskel Film Center

2023 Events Heading link

ram Han Sifuentes, seen from the neck up, standing in front of a brick wall and looking toward the camera. Below them is text describing the event (same info on this page).
ram Han Sifuentes, seen from the neck up, standing in front of a brick wall and looking toward the camera. Below them is text describing the event (same info on this page).

VOICES: Aram Han Sifuentes

Thursday, March 9, 2023
5-6:30pm CT
UIC Gallery 400, 400 S. Peoria St.

Artist and activist Aram Han Sifuentes’s work confronts social and racial injustices, interweaving fiber, social practice, performance, and pedagogy to consider themes of immigration, labor, and protest. Many of her projects, such as the ongoing Protest Banner Lending Library, aim to make art more accessible to the disenfranchised, especially immigrants of color. Since 2016, Sifuentes has brought communities together to sew protest banners, creating a creative outlet of resistance for those who cannot attend protests for their own safety.

Join Sifuentes for a lecture on their practice’s trajectory, exploring how they make political statements and engage communities through participatory art.

Presented in partnership with UIC Gallery 400 and Gender and Women’s Studies.

Promotional poster: Headshots of Ashley Dequilla and Sarah Whyte. Behind them is a darkened image of paintbrushes and paints. At the top is the title of the event in magenta and chartreuse text. Below the images is black text describing the event, on a chartreuse background.
Promotional poster: Headshots of Ashley Dequilla and Sarah Whyte. Behind them is a darkened image of paintbrushes and paints. At the top is the title of the event in magenta and chartreuse text. Below the images is black text describing the event, on a chartreuse background.

Artist-Activists Reimagining Justice: Ashley Dequilla and Sarah Whyte

Friday, March 10, 2023
11:30am – 1pm CT
Zoom

How do women and gender non-conforming artists who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color decide to use their creative skills to bolster social justice movements? How does their work engage racial and economic justice to imagine new possibilities with and for their local communities and beyond? How do they bring this work into the academy and vice-versa?

During Women’s History Month, WLRC is hosting dialogues with artists, activists, and educators to explore these questions and inspire new ways to work collectively toward a better world.

Join us for a conversation with artists and UIC MFA students Ashley Dequilla and Sarah Whyte about how their work brings visibility to Asian American and transnational adoptee experiences and justice movements.

Promotional poster: Three women with their arms around each other. Above them is purple text on a salmon background:
Promotional poster: Three women with their arms around each other. Above them is purple text on a salmon background: "Women of Color Affinity Group: Celebrating Our History," along with the date, time, location, and RSVP info.

Women of Color Affinity Group: Celebrating Our History

Monday, March 13, 2023
2-3:30pm CT
1700 SSB, 1200 W. Harrison St.

Are you a woman-identifying student of color looking to build connections and community at UIC? The Women’s Leadership and Resource Center invites you to join our new Affinity Group!

We’ll start this month’s gathering with a reflection about the women of color who have inspired us in our personal, academic, and professional lives. Then we’ll let the conversation flow wherever it takes us!

  • Open to UIC undergraduate, graduate, and professional students who identify as women of color (including Black, Indigenous, Latina/e/x, Asian/Asian American, Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern/Northern African, and mixed race women)

WLRC’s Affinity Groups provide students who share an identity or professional interest space to gather, discuss shared experiences, support each other through challenges, and affirm and celebrate their communities. Each group meets once a month and is facilitated by WLRC staff.

Promotional poster: Headshots of the 5 speakers on a purple background. The event title is in large white letters at the top, with a raised fist inside the first
Promotional poster: Headshots of the 5 speakers on a purple background. The event title is in large white letters at the top, with a raised fist inside the first "O" and two flags inside the second "O." Below that are details about the event (same info on this page).

Sovereignty Is in the Body: Indigeneity and Reproductive Justice

Wednesday, March 15, 2023
12-2pm CT
Zoom

What does reproductive justice look like for Indigenous women in the U.S.? Drawing on their experiences as Indigenous feminist activists, birth workers, and healthcare practitioners in the U.S., the panelists will discuss the connections between historic conditions and contemporary struggles for reproductive justice, as well as the strategies, successes, and challenges of organizing for reproductive justice in the post-Dobbs moment.

Speakers:

  • Nicolle Gonzales, Midwifery Director/Founder of Changing Women Initiative
  • M. Carmen Lane, Founder and Director, ATNSC: Center for Healing & Creative Leadership
  • Rachael Lorenzo, Co-founder/Executive Director, Indigenous Women Rising
  • Janelle Palacios, PhD, CNM, Nurse Midwife Scientist & Storyteller for Social Justice

Moderator: Cindy Tekobbe, Assistant Professor, Critical Feminist Science & Technology, UIC

Presented by the UIC Women’s Leadership and Resource Center and Indigenous Graduate Student Association. Co-sponsored by UIC Native American Support Program, Gender and Women’s Studies, and College of Nursing.

Promotional poster: Three women, one pouring liquid into a beaker, one holding paper, and one holding a laptop, on a purple background. Around them are a DNA molecule, a light bulb, and a ringed planet. Above and below them are the title (
Promotional poster: Three women, one pouring liquid into a beaker, one holding paper, and one holding a laptop, on a purple background. Around them are a DNA molecule, a light bulb, and a ringed planet. Above and below them are the title ("Women in STEM & Business Affinity Group: Honoring Women Trailblazers") and date, time, location, and RSVP info for the event.

Women in STEM & Business Affinity Group: Honoring Women Trailblazers

Thursday, March 16, 2023
2-3:30pm CT
1700 SSB, 1200 W. Harrison St.

Are you a woman-identifying student in Business or STEM (science, tech, engineering, math) looking to build connections and community at UIC? The Women’s Leadership and Resource Center invites you to join our new Affinity Group!

We’ll start this month’s gathering by recognizing the women STEM & business leaders who have paved the way for us. Then we’ll let the conversation flow wherever it takes us!

  • Open to UIC undergraduate, graduate, and professional students who identify as women and are majoring or interested in STEM and business fields

WLRC’s Affinity Groups provide students who share an identity or professional interest space to gather, discuss shared experiences, support each other through challenges, and affirm and celebrate their communities. Each group meets once a month and is facilitated by WLRC staff.

Promotional poster: Headshots of Ashley Dequilla, Queen Hibbler, and Onyx. Behind them is a darkened image of paint cans. At the top is the title of the event in magenta, chartreuse, and white text. Below the images is black text describing the event, on a green background.
Promotional poster: Headshots of Ashley Dequilla, Queen Hibbler, and Onyx. Behind them is a darkened image of paint cans. At the top is the title of the event in magenta, chartreuse, and white text. Below the images is black text describing the event, on a green background.

Artist-Activists Reimagining Reproductive and Gender Justice

Wednesday, March 29, 2023
12-2pm CT
1700 SSB, 1200 W. Harrison St.

How do women and gender non-conforming artists who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color decide to use their creative skills to bolster social justice movements? How does their work engage racial and economic justice to imagine new possibilities with and for their local communities and beyond? How do they bring this work into the academy and vice-versa?

During Women’s History Month, WLRC is hosting dialogues with artists, activists, and educators to explore these questions and inspire new ways to work collectively toward a better world.

Join us for a conversation with artists and community activists Ashley Dequilla, Queen Hibbler, and Onyx about how their work brings visibility to reproductive and gender justice movements. The discussion will be followed by a screenprinting party featuring a custom design by one of the participating artists. Please bring a t-shirt, tote bag, poster, or other item to have screenprinted (we will have some shirts and bags available for free on a first-come, first-served basis).

Promotional poster: Headshots of Dr. Teves and Dr. Arvin on a moss green background. The event title, date, and location are printed above and below their photos in black text.
Promotional poster: Headshots of Dr. Teves and Dr. Arvin on a moss green background. The event title, date, and location are printed above and below their photos in black text.

Engaging Pacific Island Feminism and Indigenous Feminism

Thursday, March 30, 2023
4-5pm CT
Zoom

Join us for a special event with Dr. Stephanie Nohelani Teves, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, and Dr. Maile Arvin, Associate Professor of History and Gender Studies at the University of Utah, about Pacific Island Feminism, expanding on their co-written chapter, “Decolonizing API,” in Asian American Feminisms and Women of Color Politics.

Presented in partnership with the UIC AANAPISI Initiative, Native American Support Program, Global Asian Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies, and Gender and Sexuality Center. This event is also part of the Deconstructing AAPI Series, which is dedicated to curating events that expose the  identity-specific issues that are hidden when grouping the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.