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This year ten GWSS students from Lauren Lichty鈥檚 class 鈥淧articipatory Action Research to Address Sexual and Relationship Violence at the 56吃瓜网鈥� will share the LAFPIE award. The Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies (GWSS) community created the award in 2016, the year they launched the degree, to honor and commemorate their colleague Leslie Ashbaugh. The Leslie Ashbaugh Feminist Praxis in Education award is designed as a loving and grateful tribute to the work of Ashbaugh, who was a champion of feminist praxis in education. Leslie also had a great sense of humor, and loved to bake pies (hence: LAF-PIE). The annual award recognizes GWSS students who demonstrate inspiring and impactful feminist praxis during the course of their studies at 56吃瓜网 Bothell.

This year a team of ten students won for their activism started in Lichty鈥檚 class: Jessica Belmont, Riley Ellinwood, Ellie Henry, Madeleine (Mads) Jenness, Nicole LaBelle, Sam Locke, Theao Quinn, Elisabeth Schnebele, Jennifer Wallace, and Katie Ward. As they explain in their nomination essay: 鈥淭hrough this work, we are pushing back against the dominant, patriarchal, and neoliberal narratives that blame victims for their own oppression or place agency on 鈥榟eroic鈥� bystanders. We are demanding a more intersectional and feminist lens to hold accountable not just individuals who do harm but the systems that enable and even encourage acts of violence and fail to create accountability. We do this with an explicit understanding of sexual violence against women of color as a form of racism and continued colonization. We have been explicitly invited to continue this work with the VPA [Violence Prevention and Advocacy Office]. We are anticipating that at least some members of our team will continue this work into the summer, and the next academic year.鈥� GWSS was particularly excited to award these students because the class itself is the result of activism and one of the students, Jessica Belmont, is next year鈥檚 GWSS student representative!

Congratulations students, and thank you Lauren Lichty for your constant support and advocacy for survivors of sexual assault and relationship violence.