U. women receive awards at Faculty Club ceremony

Although Wheaties cereal was not served, an awards ceremony yesterday morning could aptly be named "The Breakfast of Champions." The awards, presented in memory of female scholar and leader Leonore Rowe Williams and suffragist Alice Paul, were presented to University women as part of a Faculty Club breakfast gathering of the Association of Women Faculty and Administrators. The awards honored successful female faculty members, administrators and students who had worked to raise campus awareness of issues involving student government, acquaintance rape, racism and sexism. The association named Medical School Associate Dean of Minority Affairs Helen Dickens and outgoing Nursing School Dean Claire Fagin recipients of the Leonore Rowe Williams Award. Former Undergraduate Assembly Chairperson Duchess Harris received the first of eight Alice Paul Awards, presented to outstanding undergraduate and graduate students. In accepting her award, Harris, a College senior, related a freshman-year story of mistakenly going to the president's office, at College Hall room 100, when she intended to go to her advising office -- Logan Hall room 100. Harris said she has returned to the president's office under more familiar terms on official UA business, and added that when women find themselves in a top administrative office it has become more and more likely they have "found the right room." The ceremony also marked the first time an Alice Paul award was presented to a male student, College senior Nicholas King, for his work to raise awareness of aquaintance rape as a founding member of Students Together Against Acquaintance Rape. In accepting his award, King blasted the incoming board of the Undergraduate Assembly, saying the new leadership -- some of whom are fraternity brothers -- comes from groups "notoriously unsupportive" of women's issues and women's rights. "The boys are getting a little smarter," King said. "Everyone's going to have to be very careful." The organizers also presented their first ever award to a group -- the organizers of the Women's Theater Festival. For her acceptance speech, Alice Paul award recipient and Pan-Asian Circle Coordinator Amy Hsi read a poem calling for men and women to work together against problems of sexism, racism, and homophobia. "I just want to say although there are all these problems, I love being Chinese-American and I love being a woman," Hsi said after the poem. Other winners included STARR co-founder Anne Siegel, and graduate students Beth Hackett, Lesley Rimmel, and Elin Danien.

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