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Welcome to the third volume of Badass Womxn and Enbies in the Pacific Northwest zine. Within this zine, we celebrate 36 biographies and portraits of individuals conducting badass work amongst their diverse fields. Led by Dr. Shayne, University of Washington Bothell librarians Penelope Wood and Denise Hattwig, and peer facilitator Bri Fero in a Gender, Women, & Sexuality Studies class, undergraduate students collaborated to curate this amazing digital mosaic! We aim to celebrate and honor some of the strongest and most inspirational individuals in the Pacific Northwest who you might not have heard of.

In the 4th edition of Badass Womxn and Enbies in the Pacific Northwest, undergraduate students in a Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies course at the University of Washington Bothell created a dynamic collection of biographies and portraits that highlight powerful, influential individuals whose stories often go untold. This Zine brings together poetry, art, and writing to honor 30 badass changemakers across various fields and time periods. Led by Dr. Shayne, with the invaluable support of librarians Penelope Wood and Denise Hattwig, as well as our peer facilitator Binta Baldeh, this collaborative project spans generations, celebrating hidden histories with a focus on telling them the right way. Each volume, including this one, is a testament to the creativity, strength and irreplaceable impact of womxn and enbies in our region. We hope you feel as inspired reading their stories as we did curating them.

What is the place of sports at a university in 2024? From joining the Big 10 Conference to intramural basketball, student contributors examined the influence of sports on the University of Washington campus. With historical artifacts and contemporary media, student contributors share stories that reveal the impact of the places and people that sports opportunities offer.

Twenty students from a wide variety of majors, including the sciences, humanities, health and medicine, as well as engineering, architecture, and design comprised our vibrant and engaged learning community. We started the quarter by imaginary visits to two important art schools, the German Bauhaus (1919-1933) and the Black Mountain College, located near Asheville, North Carolina (1933-1957). The students co-created participatory collaborative exercises based on the experiential learning principles developed by and practiced at these schools.

Throughout the course, we considered craft and art not as nouns, but as verbs, related the practiced maker’s hand to the process aided by technological tools, and focused on the language of the materials, and the personal, cultural, historical narratives that they help to reveal. We contemplated how individual threads hold the fabric together and transform that, and how individual narratives coalesce into larger histories that signify and hold together communities.  We strived to explore and understand both the historical past and the innovative present and future by specifically focusing on needlework (sewing, embroidery, and quilts) during the 1920 and ‘30s (women suffrage movement), the 1970s and ‘80s (second wave of feminism, LGBTQ rights and HIV/AIDS crisis), and in the present. We also considered how new technologies, such as parametric design and 3D printing, introduce new paradigms for solving problems, designing, producing, and using objects. Of course, the effect of technology was inescapable for us in the class too, as it was for billions around the world during this global pandemic.

We made two projects. One, using needlework techniques and textile processes to tell a personal story of Waiting, and a second one, using Computer Aided Design (CAD) to create a Time Capsule which would be opened one hundred years from now. Throughout the quarter, the students researched a Bauhaus or Black Mountain College artist they had picked with the goal of reflecting on the artist’s work, biography, creative process, and ideas about making by drawing parallels to those of their own.

Persistence is Resistance: Celebrating 50 Years of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies is an open access book with pdf available for download. This collection includes contributions from a diverse group of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies (GWSS) scholars, from undergraduate students to faculty emeritus, representing twenty-four different institutions. The Introduction is by Beverly-Guy Sheftall and there are twenty short essays on the following topics: history of the first program (SDSU); Africana Women’s Studies; GWSS in the Global South; the women’s studies name change; the urgency of GWSS; an annotated bibliography on the history of GWSS; feminist pedagogy and praxis; feminist publishing; institutional battles; feminist administrating; getting jobs with a GWSS major; an undergrad’s reflection on GWSS; GWSS in Ghana; feminism in Latin America; Indigenous feminisms; ecofeminism;  GWSS and community colleges; and Chanel Miller’s Know My Name. Every author is either presently teaching in a GWSS program and/or has at least one of their degrees in GWSS. The essays are punctuated by artwork from GWSS undergraduates and alumni, and their short answers to why they chose GWSS. It is ideal for the classroom because the essays are short, jargon light, and meant to inspire feminist inquiry, activism, and pride.

Modules, games and labs focused on teaching climate change.  Developed by graduate students and faculty associated with the UW Program on Climate Change, a cross departmental collaboration to research, teach and communicate climate science.  Updated regularly.

Cover Image Credit: University of Washington