MTSU’s observance of National Women’s History Month will be an appreciation of more than 100 years of American women’s suffrage.

The opening ceremony is slated for 3 p.m. Central Friday, March 5, at mtsu.edu/events/live.

“Valiant Women of the Vote: Refusing to be Silenced,” which would have been the theme of last year’s calendar of events if not for the COVID-19 pandemic, is this year’s theme. The campus community will celebrate the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was adopted officially on Aug. 26, 1920.

The amendment reads, in full, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

To access a printable PDF of the full calendar of events, click here. Some of the featured events for the month follow.

• STEM graduate students will share why they chose to major in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and celebrate women’s recent contributions in the sciences with local high school students and MTSU undergraduate students during the virtual “No Pressure Q&A with College Students” at 5:30  p.m. Wednesday, March 3, at https://tinyurl.com/aa2s42ev.

• “MTSU Women of Color in Health Care: Women STEM Professionals in the Workforce After Graduation” is scheduled for 6:30  p.m. Monday, March 8, at https://mtsu.zoom.us/s/89586019959.

MTSU graduates and STEM professionals will share their stories with the campus and community. Panelists will answer questions on why they chose careers in health care, how they traveled their career paths and what they’re doing today.

Dr. Mary Frances Berry

• Dr. Mary Frances Berry, former chair of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission through four different presidential administrations, will deliver the National Women’s History Month keynote address at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 16, at https://mtsu.zoom.us/s/85112820036.

Berry, a Nashville native, is the Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought and a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania.

• “Three Steps to Claiming Your Voice: A Framework for Empowerment” is scheduled for 5 p.m. Monday, March 15, at https://tinyurl.com/34e3kx5y.

This 90-minute virtual workshop, which is geared to faculty and graduate students, will help participants navigate academic environments where women’s voices are interrupted, ignored or silenced. It will focus on the costs of not speaking up and practical strategies for self-advocacy.

Nobuko Miyamoto

Deborah Wong

• Musician and dancer Nobuko Miyamoto will share music and moments from her memoir with collaborator Deborah Wong at 2 p.m. Tuesday, March 16, at https://bit.ly/3bcnvAm.

Miyamoto will discuss her community-building work, social justice lessons from Asian Americans, intercultural coalition-building and allyship among women from different communities.

• Meg Brooker, MTSU’s director of dance, will explore Florence Fleming Noyes’ “Dance of Freedom” in a lecture and demonstration at 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 17, in Room G040B of Murphy Center with limited seating, social distancing and campus COVID-19 protocols.

The presentation will use archival film and newspaper records, as well as dancing, to depict the role of dance in the women’s suffrage movement, particularly the change from physical restraint to freedom of movement. To register to watch the videoconference, go to https://forms.gle/H7EjwtGHRU8G1cjp7.

Meg Brooker

Dr. Claudia Williamson

• University of Tennessee-Chattanooga economics professor Claudia Williamson will discuss her most recent published article, “Does Individualism Promote Gender Equality?” at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, March 18.

To register, go to https://tinyurl.com/n5vtk8cc. Williamson’s article, co-authored with Lewis Davis, was published in the academic journal “World Development.”

Three wearable buttons displaying historic activists will be available through campus mail. The three buttons feature Ida B. Wells-Barnett, a crusading journalist in the anti-lynching movement; Alice Paul, a prominent suffragist who believed radical action was essential to passage of women’s suffrage; and Mary Eliza Church Terrell, the first president of the National Association of Colored Women.

In addition to the Women’s History Month Committee, event sponsors and supporters include the President’s Commission on the Status of Women; the Center for Chinese Music and Culture; the Department of Theatre and Dance; Pinnacle Honor Society; the June Anderson Center for Women and Nontraditional Students; Student Programming and Raider Entertainment; the Center for Popular Music; the Center for Asian Studies; the Murfreesboro branch of the American Association for University Women; and the Center for Student Involvement and Leadership.

For more information about National Women’s History Month at MTSU, go to www.mtsu.edu/jac/nwhm.php or contact Maigan Wipfli, director of the June Anderson Center and chair of the NWHM Committee, at maigan.wipfli@mtsu.edu.

— Gina K. Logue (gina.logue@mtsu.edu)