Authors Bios
Jordan Geriane
Jordan is a fourth-year student at the University of Iowa double majoring in English and Creative Writing and Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies. An incredibly active member of her community, Jordan has been a member of the Filipino Student Association since 2021 and is currently serving as the philanthropy chair. She has also worked as a student office assistant for the UI Department of Dance, working directly with the academic coordinator and department chair of the program. When she is not on campus, she can be found working as a swim instructor and a lesson coordinator through the City of Iowa City Parks and Recreation Department or reading or writing nonfiction essays, which she avidly enjoys.
Jordan is currently midway through writing her senior thesis investigating images of reproductive justice within speculative fiction and what literature can inform us about the future of reproductive health care. On her scenario, Jordan says, “…after witnessing instances of co-workers and peers being misgendered, I realized what an important topic of discussion and education to support transgender folks. I believe that honoring and respecting a person’s gender identity can positively increase their education and learning experience.”
Violet Heisler
Violet is a third-year student at the University of Iowa double majoring in Psychology and Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies (GWSS). She is incredibly passionate about mental health awareness and shedding light on some of the lesser-known struggles of marginalized students in higher education. Violet hopes to continue drawing connections between her two fields of study throughout her undergraduate academic career and into graduate school as she is interested in working to create environments in which students of varying identities are able to and are encouraged to flourish.
Violet’s scenario addresses her core passion, mental health awareness, and highlights her unique position as a scholar in both psychology and GWSS as she helps instructors navigate students’ personal and cultural identities from a trauma-informed perspective. On why she chose to address this specific issue, Violet says that she “…aims to invite instructors to learn more about mental health, and how they can play an active, supportive role in their student’s academic lives. Its [mental health issues] occurrence within different demographics motivated me to provide informed statistics, resources, and strategic tools that can help them guide students who may be struggling with mental health.”
Clare Palmatier
Clare is a fourth-year student in the Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Iowa. After beginning her academic career at the University of Illinois at Chicago, she quickly discovered a passion for domestic violence prevention and integrating trauma-informed accommodation for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault into the classroom. After transferring to the University of Iowa, she would continue to pursue and study this passion and would discover that issues of accommodation within the classroom are a relevant topic to a variety of intersecting identities, which she hopes to address through her scenarios.
Clare chose to address two different topics in her scenarios with the first being disability accommodation within the classroom. As a student, her personal experience interested and informed her in the necessity of addressing such a complex but vital issue. On the importance of accommodation, she says, “The process through which students must pursue accommodations does not just stop after receiving a letter of accommodation from Student Disability Services. They must also deal with the reality that their accommodations may not be translated into a classroom setting in a way that is actually beneficial to their learning. With this scenario, I wanted to examine what a classroom that is already prepared to accommodate students of varying ability would look like.” In her second scenario, she addresses the importance of recognizing warning signs of domestic abuse and knowing when, how, and with whom to address a serious concern about a student’s safety. On both her scenarios, Clare says, “I chose these topics because they are both very close to my heart. As undergraduate students, I think all of us have a unique and vital perspective as we have seen all of these issues play out in real-time. The way instructors respond in the moment and proceed to follow up after the fact can both be incredibly impactful on the environment they are creating for their students.”
Claire Player
Claire is a fourth-year International Studies and Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies double major at the University of Iowa. Her interest in building community relationships with both people and land is reflective of her post-graduation plans to work in sustainable agriculture to continue working to fight climate change and the tumult of system change in a capacity that liberates both land and people. She will further be exploring her desire to work for movements building sustainable, care-centered systems of food production in her senior thesis next semester.
Clare’s scenario centers on the importance of trauma-informed responses by staff and faculty in the wake of tragedies on campus or within the community. She explores how instructors might prepare to respond to their students sharing vulnerable information and personal stories with the class. On her personal experience with a similar situation, Claire says, “I have been interested in how instructors respond to students’ sharing of traumatic personal experiences after this occurred in one of my classes. My instructor responded well, but it got me thinking about how many instructors might feel unprepared to respond. It seems like the intensity and frequency of world/national/local events ramp up more and more each year in this highly tumultuous moment of climate change and protests against oppressive regimes and systemic injustices. My hope is that this scenario can prepare instructors to respond in the moment and feel equipped to provide students with opportunities to respond.”
Olivia Willets
Olivia is a third-year Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies student at the University of Iowa with a double minor in Social Work and Political Science. As her fields of study indicate, Olivia is passionate about working with marginalized populations and demographics in the future and has examined the unique issues faced by a variety of cultural identities throughout her academic career.
Utilizing her personal experience at the University of Iowa as a jumping-off point, Olivia chose to tackle two different issues in her scenarios. In one, she discusses incorporating content warnings for sensitive material into the classroom. On this, she says, “I think being more mindful of the differing experiences students bring to a learning environment can greatly aid inclusivity.” For her second scenario, Olivia brings to light the importance of land acknowledgements in the classroom and standardizing this as a university-wide practice, especially for institutions like ours that are built on Indigenous land. On her experience with land acknowledgments at the University of Iowa, Olivia says, “Being a GWSS major, many of my classes have given me a better understanding of the role our country and university has played and continues to play in maintaining settler colonialism. Recognizing this and doing our best to be accountable in the form of land acknowledgements can be a first step in working towards social justice and recognizing that there is still work to be done.”