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Rachel Mather, who took a two-year hiatus from Emory while working in the Office
of the Governor of Georgia, returned to campus in July to become Special Program
Assistant at Emory Women’s Center. At the Governor’s Office, Ms. Mather
was primarily responsible for recruiting, interviewing, and placing students
in internships with state and non-profit agencies throughout Georgia.
A 1999 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Emory University, Rachel majored in English
and Women’s Studies and minored in Spanish. She also attended Cursos Internacionales
at the Universidad de Salamanca in Spain. Outside the classroom, where she was
clearly a serious scholar, Rachel worked as a student assistant in the office
of Emory’s Institute for Women’s Studies. She also did internships
at the Feminist Women’s Health Center of Atlanta and Pets Are Loving Support
(P.A.L.S.), another local non-profit organization.
Rachel attributes her interest in women studies to several influences. The
earliest of these were the feminist and political ideologies instilled in her
by her mother. Then, in high school, two books opened her awareness to women’s
studies. These were Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and The History of Women
in America by Carol Hymowitz and Michaele Weissman. According to Rachel, these
two volumes were evidence that the women’s movement was actually older
than her mother (!) and that there actually existed an area of academic study
where she could examine those ideologies. (Happily so!) Once engaged in women’s
studies, it easily followed that Rachel’s interest in the impact of language
and culture on women’s lives would peak. Thus she also chose to study Spanish
language and literature along with Latin culture. In her own words, "I
have always loved literature and language, so once I discovered women’s
studies as an interdisciplinary academic area, I naturally gravitated towards
it in those two particular areas of more ‘traditional’ discipline."
We welcome Rachel back to Emory and particularly to the Women’s Center where she will have opportunities galore to put her passions and interests to work.
Return to Women's News and Narratives Fall 2001