There’s a new scholarship for students living their major in the College of Sciences’ Department of Women’s Studies. “When students tell their parents they’re going to major in women’s studies, they are lectured about not being able to get a job with this degree,” said professor emerita Meda Chesney-Lind. “But this major is about them – it’s about the issues they’re living through and being challenged by.”
Chesney-Lind, who has been with the College since 1986, and husband Ian Lind established the Chesney-Lind Women’s Studies Endowed Scholarship in 2020. They have also included funding for the endowment in their estate plans, giving it an extra boost.
It is the first endowed scholarship for the women’s studies department, which will officially change its name to Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies in Fall 2021.
“In the classroom, women report serious problems with being picked on, bullied, isolated and not treated fairly, enough to motivate them to select this major,” said Chesney-Lind. Added her husband, a former Honolulu Star-Bulletin investigative reporter and columnist, “This scholarship legitimizes their choice.”
Although the couple is retired, each is still working. “My retirement job is my old job, without the pay. We have enough in our retirement so we don’t need the money, but we still need to do the work,” said Chesney-Lind. “We do these things now, not because they’re our jobs, but because they’re the right things to do.” In addition to her role with the department, she volunteers with the Women’s Campus Club thrift store on the UH Mānoa campus.
Lind still writes occasionally for the Honolulu Civil Beat news website and has maintained a personal blog for 20 years, a mix of commentary on current events and cat photos.
His mother, Helen, set the example inspiring the Chesney-Lind scholarship. She funded two endowed scholarships for students who were non-traditional and Hawaiʻi residents in need of assistance returning to college at any of the University of Hawaiʻi campuses. “She taught at UH for about eight years, and felt strongly that disadvantaged people coming to school needed every boost they could get,” said Lind. “It was a good lesson for us: You can’t take it with you, so do something while you can.”
Now Meda and Ian offer their own encouragement to students in women’s studies, in the form of financial support and a message it carries to future recipients. Said Chesney-Lind, “Abigail Adams reminded her husband (President John Adams) in 1776 to ‘remember the ladies.’ We would update the sentiment: Remember the women.”
To find out more about supporting the department, send an email to UH Foundation’s Karla Zarate-Ramirez at Karla.Zarate-Ramirez@uhfoundation.org.
