Hepburn Center Blog

On the Front Lines: A Career in Philadelphia’s Dept. of Public Health

Analiz Vergara — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:27:53 +0000

Carol Rogers will discuss the challenges and issues that have most engaged her during her 29-year career in the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, and the insights her professional experience affords regarding the current crisis facing our nation’s health-care system. Since 1980, Rogers has been a leading health advocate in Philadelphia, where she has worked as a physician assistant and health educator. For 18 ears, Rogers worked as a clinician in the City’s health center for the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases. She spearheaded a roundbreaking initiative to promote and distribute the female condom, creating a community-based model that has been widely adopted. In the late 1980s, as an activist in her union, AFSCME Local 2187, DC 47, she waged a successful campaign to save the City’s eight comprehensive health-care centers. More recently, Rogers has coordinated efforts to respond to a voter-mandated change to the Philadelphia Home Rule harter directing the health department to develop “a plan for universal health care that permits everyone in the City to obtain decent health care.”

Tuesday, October 27, 7:30 p.m.
Ely Room, Wyndham, Bryn Mawr College
Co-sponsored by the Center for Science in Society, the Civic Engagement Office, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Health Professions Advising, and the Office of Intercultural Affairs

Social Entrentrepreneurship Workshop

Analiz Vergara — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:15:50 +0000

Thursday, October 22, 4–8:30 p.m.
Wyndham, Bryn Mawr College

The Social Entrepreneurship Workshop is intended for Bryn Mawr and Haverford students interested in careers in social entrepreneurship. It is an interactive experience designed to provide practical and strategic career-planning information. It will include talks by four experts in international social entrepreneurship at different stages in their careers, followed by a roundtable discussion and informal small-group discussions among participants, speakers, and faculty experts.

WORKSHOP FOCUS
What is social entrepreneurship?
What one can do to get started in this field?
What are possible career opportunities and paths for work in social entrepreneurship?
What skills are needed to be successful in this kind of work?
What are the rewards and challenges of a career in social entrepreneurship?

SPEAKERS
Maya Ajmera ’89, Founder and President
Global Fund for Children
Doug Balfour, CEO
Geneva Global Performance Philanthropy
Jenna Mulhall-Brereton ’96,
Assistant Program Director
Geneva Global Performance Philanthropy
Deborah Ahenkorah ’10, Hepburn Intern
FACULTY EXPERTS
Kalala Ngalamulume, Professor of History
Bryn Mawr College
Mary Osirim, Professor of Sociology
Bryn Mawr College
Dan Wagner, Professor of Education
University of Pennsylvania
Susan White, Professor of Chemistry
Bryn Mawr College

Enrollment is limited to 40 students. Please register by October 9.
To register, contact Leslie Rescorla at lrescorl@brynmawr.edu.
Co-sponsored by the Association of International Students, Career Development Office, Center for International Studies, Center for Social Science, Civic Engagement Office, Haverford Committee on International Initiatives, Haverford Microfinance Consulting Club, Haverford Women in Action, IMPACT, Intercultural Affairs Office, Owl Investment Group, and Project Educate in AfricaEnrollment is limited to 40 students. Please register by October 9.

To register, contact Leslie Rescorla at lrescorl@brynmawr.edu.

Screening of Hepburn Fellow Sarah Schenck’s film “Slippery Slope”

Analiz Vergara — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 21:43:57 +0000

The Hepburn Center, Film Studies, and Gender and Sexuality Studies are delighted to co-sponsor a screening of

Slippery Slope

A film by Sarah Schenck, ‘87

2009-2010 Hepburn Fellow Sarah Schenck will introduce her film

and then be available for questions and conversation following the screening.

Date: Thursday, September 24, 2009

Time: 7:30

Place: Carpenter 21

In the comedy Slippery Slope, a fierce young feminist filmmaker desperate for cash to finish her documentary secretly takes a job directing a porn film after her other moneymaking schemes don’t pan out. She brings her feminist ideals to the porn set, and the experience unexpectedly awakens her slumbering sexuality, arousing the suspicions of her politically-correct husband and threatening her marriage.

After three sold-out screenings at the 2006 Montreal World Film Festival, the Montreal Gazette called Slippery Slope “a huge success” and said “Montreal audiences are eating up Slippery Slope.” Sarah’s first feature film as a writer and director, Slippery Slope won the Best Feature Award at the 2007 Broad Humor Film Festival in Los Angeles, and is being distributed internationally by Lifesize Entertainment.

Nora Ephron (screenwriter and director, Julie & Julia, Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail, When Harry Met Sally) wrote: “The movie looks great…and you got great work out of the actors.”

Susan Faludi (author, Backlash, Stiffed) wrote “Slippery Slope was delightful and yes, you did make me laugh in many spots…I admire your verve in tackling a dicey subject.”

Academy-award nominated animator Bill Plympton raves “I’ve just seen Slippery Slope by Sarah Schenck and it’s a wonderful and very funny film. You’ll love it.”
David Brown (Producer, Jaws, Cocoon, The Player) called Slippery Slope a “fresh and amusing send-up of pornography, funny and well done…good cast and first-rate writing.”

Shere Hite (author, The Hite Report on Female Sexuality, The Hite Report on Male Sexuality – over 40 million books published) says, “I loved your film Slippery Slope, it is hilarious, funny, multi-layered and really warm.”

Hepburn Center Welcomes Filmmaker and Health Advocate as New Fellows; Previous Fellows to Return

Analiz Vergara — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 06:37:18 +0000

Filmmaker Sarah Schenck ’87 and Philadelphia public-health advocate Carol Rogers have been selected as Hepburn Fellows for the 2009-10 academic year, Katharine Houghton Hepburn Center Director Leslie Rescorla has announced.

In addition, 2008-09 Fellow Maya Ajmera ’89 will be returning to campus on Oct. 22 to lead a workshop on social entrepeneurship, and 2008-09 Fellow Ana Maria Lopez ’82 will be chairing a campus conference on health-care disparities and access on March 19-20, 2010.

Schenck will make her first visit to campus as a Hepburn Fellow on Sept. 24 to screen and respond to audience questions about Slippery Slope, her comedy about feminism and pornography. Slippery Slope, which won the “Best Feature” award at the 2007 Broad Humor Film Festival in Los Angeles, was Schenck’s first directorial effort. In 2004, Schenck was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for producing Virgin, directed by Deborah Kampmeier and starring Robin Wright Penn and Elisabeth Moss. She has won prizes in the U.K. and Belgium as a writer, director, and producer of short films. She is currently directing a feature film titled Primitive Streak, which will appear initially online in short, interactive episodes. She is also producing the NEH-funded feature documentary No Job for a Woman–the Women Who Fought to Report World War II, which tells the stories of three women who worked as journalists, including Bryn Mawr alumna Martha Gellhorn, who accompanied the D-Day landing in Normandy.

Schenck has made numerous documentaries for nonprofit organizations such as Amnesty International and Project Renewal. She is a member of Wide Iris, an alliance of filmmakers focused on issues of social justice, environmental sustainability, and arts advocacy; and a founding member of Urban Myth Writers Collective. She makes half-hour documentaries on subjects relating to the food supply that air regularly on the Park Slope Food Coop’s cable access show. Schenck, who became a filmmaker after a career in public-education policy, field-produced the New York City segment of The College Track, a documentary about access to college for low-income students that aired in 2005 on PBS.

Carol Rogers has been a leading health advocate in Philadelphia for more than 25 years. Since 1980, she has worked as a physician assistant and health educator for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. For 18 years, Rogers worked as a clinician in the city’s health center for the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases. She spearheaded a groundbreaking initiative to promote and distribute the female condom, creating a community-based model that has been widely adopted.

In the late 1980s, as an activist in her union, AFSCME Local 2187, DC 47, Rogers waged a successful campaign to save the City’s eight comprehensive health-care centers, which led to legislation protecting their services. Rogers has served as the language-access coordinator working to make health department services accessible to immigrants and those with limited English proficiency. More recently, Rogers has coordinated efforts to respond to a voter-mandated change to the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter directing the health department to develop “a plan for universal health care that permits everyone in the City to obtain decent health care.”

Rogers has been a member of the Philadelphia Women’s Health Collective, Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW), the Philadelphia Reproductive Rights Organization, Women Against Sterilization Abuse, and has served on the boards of the Greater Philadelphia Women’s Medical Fund, Elizabeth Blackwell Health Center for Women, AFSCME Local 2187 Executive Board, the Center for AIDS Research Advisory Board, and the Maternity Care Coalition.

Maya Ajmera ‘89, 2008-09 Hepburn Fellow, presents a screening of “War Child,” a documentary film about a child soldier supported by the Global Fund for Children

Analiz Vergara — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 03:59:41 +0000

On campus to celebrate her 20th Reunion, founder and president of the Global Fund for Children, Hepburn Center Fellow Maja Ajmera ‘89 presented a screening of War Child, a feature documentary film supported by GCF. C. Karim Chrobog’s directorial debut follows the life of Emmanuel Jal, a former child solider in Sudan’s civil war. Today, Jal is an emerging international hip hop star with a message of peace (”gua”) for his war-torn land. At the age of 7, he was one of 10,000 children conscripted on both sides of the two-decade long conflict in southern Sudan. His life has been fraught with challenges and heartaches, and his story is one of triumph and survival.

The film includes remarkable footage taken of Jal in a refugee camp. Even at the age of 7, his charisma was so evident that National Geographic focused its 1980’s reportage on him as spokesperson for the children.

Ajmera founded GFC a few years after she saw the train platform school in Bhubaneshwar, India, where 40 children were receiving food, clothing, and instruction in reading and writing for only $300 a year. This program inspired her to “put small amounts of money into innovative grassroots groups serving the most vulnerable children around the world.” After obtaining a master’s degree in public policy at Duke, Ajmera started GFC. Ajmera’s first project was supporting Bhubaneswar’s Train Platform School, which she did with profits from Children from Australia to Zimbabwe: A Photographic Journey Around the World. Since 1994, GFC has disbursed nearly $15 million in 69 countries to more than 350 non-governmental organizations over the world, serving more than one million children. GFC has published 25 books and resource guides for young readers, sponsored two other films (Journey of a Red Fridge and Going to School in India), and collaborated with the International Center of Photography (ICP) in sending photographers to developing countries to capture positive images of children.

Cultural Relativism vs. Human Rights: Women’s Global Issues, A Conference at Bryn Mawr College

Alicia Steinmetz — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:09:43 +0000

Link to story

Event: Cultural Relativism vs. Human Rights: Women’s Global Issues, A Conference at Bryn Mawr College When: Friday March 27th and Saturday March 28th, 2009 Where: Wyndham Alumnae House, Bryn Mawr College

This conference will be free and open to the public. For more information, please contact Margaret Kelly at mkelly01@brynmawr.edu.

Friday March 27^th, 2009

Keynote Address 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

Christine Koggel, Bower Carty Professor of Ethics and Public Affairs, Director, Centre on Values and Ethics (COVE), Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, “Human Rights Through the Lens of Feminist Relational Theory”

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Economic, Political, and Legal Issues 9:00 am – 10:45 am

Claire Robertson, Professor of History and Women’s Studies, Ohio State University, “Trade as a Basis for Women’s Rights: Empowerment of Women”

Manisha Desai, Chair of Women’s Studies Program, University of Connecticut, “New Directions in Women’s Human Rights Activism: Notes from the Field”

Deborah Harrold, Lecturer in Political Science, Bryn Mawr College, “Algeria, Women and World of Work”

Jenna Mulhall-Brereton, (BMC ’96) Communications/Marketing Intern, Pro Mujer International, “Engendering Change: Microfinance and Women’s Empowerment in the Peruvian Andes”

Gender, Sexuality, and Reproductive Rights 11:15 am – 12:45 pm

William Ryerson, Director of Population Media Center, Shelburne, Vermont, “Working for Social Change within Cultural Contexts: Role Modeling Women’s Rights through Melodramas”

Gina Velasco, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Anthropology Department and Gender and Sexuality Program, Bryn Mawr College, “Representing the ‘Exploited Filipina Body:’ The Traffic in Women and the Politics of Solidarity in the Filipino Diaspora”

Lazaro Lima, Associate Professor of Spanish, Director of Gender & Sexuality Studies Program, Bryn Mawr College, “’The Pill’ in Puerto Rico: Biopower and the Reproduction of Empire”

Lunch and Keynote Address 12:45 pm – 2:15 pm (Buffet Lunch will be served at minimal charge. Pre-registration is required)

Shiva Balaghi, Vice President of the American Institute of Iranian Studies, “Men of God, Women of Allah: Gender and Islam in Contemporary Iranian Art”

Adolescent Girls: A Global Snapshot 2:30 pm – 4:30 pm

Maya Ajmera, Founder and President, Global Fund for Children, “Challenges Facing Adolescent Grils: Cultural Practices Around the World”

Panel of Bryn Mawr Students from Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, and Latin America

Event Poster

Mural Arts Director Jane Golden Awarded Hepburn Medal

Alicia Steinmetz — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:06:25 +0000

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, Jane Golden, and Jane McAuliffe

“I’m Mike Nutter and I work for Jane Golden,” Philadelphia’s mayor said on Saturday night.

But it wasn’t work that brought Nutter and hundreds of others to the National Constitution Center that evening.

Nutter, Bryn Mawr President Jane McAuliffe, and a host of luminaries were on hand to honor Golden, executive director of the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, with the 2009 Katherine Hepburn Medal in recognition of her tireless efforts to build community through public art, engage at-risk youth, beautify the city, and work toward social justice.

“Jane exemplifies the type of purposeful life that shapes the Hepburn Center’s mission,” McAuliffe said in presenting the award. “Where others see walls, graffiti, scribbled words of violence, and the marks of crime, she sees pure potential.”

The Katharine Houghton Hepburn Center at Bryn Mawr College is the only organization authorized by the Hepburn estate to commemorate the lives and achievements of iconic screen legend Katharine Hepburn, Bryn Mawr class of 1928, and her mother, Katharine Houghton Hepburn, Bryn Mawr class of 1900, an activist for reproductive rights and women’s suffrage.

The Hepburn Medal honors women whose lives and work embody the intelligence, drive, and independence of the four-time Oscar winner. Award recipients are chosen for their commitment and contributions to the Hepburn women’s greatest passions—film and theater, civic engagement ,and women’s health. The award was first given in 2006, in the area of film and theater, to renowned actresses Lauren Bacall and Blythe Danner.

“I am deeply honored to have my work and the work of the Mural Arts Program recognized in the spirit of the great Katharine Hepburn—because Ms. Hepburn was not only a great actor. She was a remarkable woman—years ahead of her time,” said Golden in accepting the award.

Lynn Yeakel, director of Drexel University College of Medicine’s Institute for Women’s Health and Leadership and the Betty A. Cohen Chair in Women’s Health, served as master of ceremonies for the event.

Additional photos from the event can be seen on Philadelphia Magazine’s Web site

Telemedicine: Future Directions in Service Delivery

Alicia Steinmetz — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:11:53 +0000

Place: Bryn Mawr College, Thomas 224

Date: Friday, April 24, 2009

Time: 1-5:00 pm

The conference is co-sponsored by the Bryn Mawr Katharine Houghton Hepburn Center, the Bryn Mawr and Haverford Pre-Health Programs, and the Bryn Mawr Post-Baccalaureate Program

This conference has been designed to explore the burgeoning new field of telemedicine, which integrates new video and web-based technologies to deliver medical care. The keynote speaker and organizer of the conference is Ana Maria Lopez, MD, MPH, FACP, Medical Director of the University of Arizona Telemedicine Program, where she is also Associate Dean for Outreach and Multicultural Affairs and Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine and Pathology. Dr. Lopez graduated from Bryn Mawr in 1984 and is currently a Hepburn Center Fellow. Telemedicine is an innovative and cost-effective way to provide medical care to people in underserved populations living in remote areas. Videoconferencing, transmission of still images, e-health including patient portals, remote monitoring of vital signs, continuing medical education and nursing call centers are all considered part of telemedicine and telehealth. Innovators around the country are developing ways to enhance medical care using telemedicine across the whole spectrum of medical fields, from psychiatry to oncology. The conference will feature presentations about application of telemedicine in oncology services, diabetes care, ICU services, and international public health. The conference will provide pre-health and postbac students, medical students, and medical and public health professionals with an overview of this exciting new field.

1:00 pm
Speaker:
Ana Maria Lopez, Bryn Mawr, 1982, M.D., MD, MPH, FACP, Medical Director of the University of Arizona Telemedicine Program, Associate Dean for Outreach and Multicultural Affairs and Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine and Pathology
Title:
Overview of Arizona Telemedicine Program

1:45 pm
Speaker:
Betty Levine, Ph.D., Head, Division of eHealth and Telemedicine
ISIS Center, Georgetown University Medical Center
Title:
Software development for Telediabetes

2:15 pm
Stanton Miller, M.D., Haverford, ’77, MD, MPH and Center for Public Health at MyCareTeam project in telediabetes, Lourdes Hospital
Title:
Clinical application for chronic diseases: Diabetes

2:45 pm BREAK

3:00 pm
Speaker:
Margie Fortino, MSN, RN, Operations Director, University of Pennsylvania, e-lert & e-ICU
Title:
Critical care telemedicine: The e-ICU

3:30 pm
Speaker:
Duncan Smith-Rohrberg Maru, Ph.D., co-founder of Nyaya Health and an
MD-PHD student in Yale’s Medical Scientist Training Program.
Title:
Nyaya Health’s Ultrasound Program in Rural Nepal: Implications for
Teleradiology in Resource-Denied Areas

4:00 pm
Discussion: Lessons learned and future directions

Working for Reproductive Rights in the Obama Era: at Home and Abroad

Alicia Steinmetz — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 22:24:48 +0000

The Katharine Houghton Hepburn Center and the Anthropology Department at Bryn Mawr College present

“Working for Reproductive Rights in the Obama Era: at Home and Abroad”

Dayle Steinberg, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania, and Veena Siddharth ‘ 84

Tuesday April 14, 7:30 pm

Ely Room, Wyndham

Dayle Steinberg, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania (PPSP), began her career there in 1978 as a graduate intern. PPSP - the region’s leading sexual and reproductive health care advocate and provider - annually serves more than 60,000 women, teens, and men through its 12 health centers, education programs, and public advocacy initiatives. Dayle has made more than 50 television appearances, and can be heard often on NPR and other stations commenting on reproductive health care concerns. Dayle’s talk will focus on PPSP’s three-part role in the local community:reproductive health care services, sexuality education programs, and public advocacy initiatives. She’ll discuss PPSP’s efforts that are specifically delivered to young people and also those that encourage their involvement.

Veena Siddharth ‘84 began pursuing issues of poverty and rights in developing countries as a Bryn Mawr student. Following her graduation, she lived and worked in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, focusing her career on issues related to poverty and powerlessness in such areas as women’s rights, human rights, economic security for women, refugee assistance, education, and HIV/AIDS. Veena’s talk will focus on how Planned Parenthood works with allies in the United States and abroad to ensure that all women and men have the right and the means to meet their seuxal and reproductive healthcare needs. She will also address Planned Parenthood’s strategy for working with the Obama Administration to improve U.S. policies affecting women’s health and rights overseas.

“Unexpected Paths: Women in Academic Leadership” Lecture by Sally Mason

Alicia Steinmetz — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 22:10:19 +0000

The Katharine Houghton Hepburn Center and the Center for Science in Society present:

Sally Mason, President, University of Iowa

“Unexpected Paths: Women in Academic Leadership”

Part of the “Celebrating Women Scientists as University Presidents” Lecture Series

Date: Thursday April 2, 2009

Time: 7:30PM

Place: Ely Room, Wyndham

Sally Mason is the 20^th President of the University of Iowa, as well as a Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences. In her first year at Iowa, President Mason started an initiative to make sustainability a central priority of the University’s operations, its academic mission, and its greater responsibilities to society.

The daughter of an immigrant family and the first child to attend college, President Mason received her B.A. in zoology from the University of Kentucky, her M.S. from Purdue University, and her Ph.D. in cellular, molecular, and developmental biology from the University of Arizona in 1978. After two years at Indiana University doing postdoctoral research, she spent 21 years at the University of Kansas, where she was a Professor in the Department of Molecular Biosciences, Acting Chair of the Department of Physiology and Cell Biology., Sciences. She then served as Provost of Purdue University from 2001-2007, where she was instrumental in the development of Purdue’s Discovery Park, an interdisciplinary research incubator focused on such topics as nanotechnology, entrepreneurship, and biosciences.

President Mason’s research interests have focused on the developmental biology, genetics, and biochemistry of pigment cells and pigments in the skin of vertebrates. She currently co-chairs the Task Force on National Energy Policy and Midwestern Competitiveness of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, a national task force exploring how likely upcoming energy and climate change legislation will impact Midwest economic competitiveness.