I was a high school dropout when I entered Greenfield Community College in 1996. When I graduated in 1999 with a concentration in women’s studies, I was on my way to a summer internship at Ms. Magazine and the Ada Comstock Scholars Program at Smith College, where I graduated on the dean’s list and with a bachelor’s degree in women’s studies. I have since opened a cafe (The Lady Killigrew in Montague), worked in the social justice nonprofit sector for years, and am now a successful interior designer. When I was in school people would occasionally ask, “What are you going to do with a degree in women’s studies?” I can now, 23 years later, answer them: I change/d lives for the better. I taught classes at a local educational nonprofit modeled on my GCC classes and I know where those students ended up: they are changing lives for the better. I helped shaped nonprofit programs to be more intersectional and inclusive. I even design with social justice in mind! The interdisciplinary nature of a Women/Gender Studies degree enabled/enables me to enter into every conversation or interaction, whether it’s about the environment, economy, politics, racism, and yes, sexism, with a thoroughly nuanced analysis of all contributing factors of the topic at hand. How strange that an esteemed institution such as GCC, who sits in the heart of the esteemed Valley, a place known for it’s progressive and thoughtful values, should consider, in this current political and social moment, reducing access to perhaps the most important and interdisciplinary pathway a student could experience there. I urge the President of GCC to read the headlines and really think about what this world needs more of: thoughtful, nuanced, and educated conversations and policies around all the systems of oppression Americans live under.
Sarah Reid
Deering, NH