Department of Communication Professor Wins ORWAC Research Development Grant

Meredith Neville-Shepard, teaching associate professor in the Department of Communication in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, has been awarded a 2022 Research Development Grant from the Organization for Research on Women and Communication (ORWAC).

ORWAC Research Development grants are “designed to assist feminist scholars completing research or creative projects that privilege and advance understandings about the intersectionality and complexity defining women’s lives.” There are five grant categories, and one winner may be chosen from each. Neville-Shepard was the recipient in the contingent faculty category.

Neville-Shepard will use the grant to support her project, “Sporting Sexism: An Analysis of Arguments About Regulating Women’s Athletic Attire,” which will build on her previous award-winning scholarship about the rhetoric of dress codes and how the arguments employed in debates over women’s attire reflect and underwrite misogynistic culture.

On being selected as a grant recipient, Neville-Shepard stated, “As a feminist scholar, it is especially meaningful to receive a grant from an organization like ORWAC that is dedicated to research centered on gender and social change. Another thing that makes ORWAC special is that they set aside a grant specifically for contingent faculty, which demonstrates that they truly value research from all scholars regardless of title. I’m honored to be chosen for the grant and proud to call myself an ORWAC member.”

About the Organization for Research on Women and Communication: The Organization for Research on Women and Communication (ORWAC) promotes dialogue, discussion, research and scholarship concerned with women, feminism, gender, oppression and social change. ORWAC seeks to advance understandings of the intersections of gender and race, ethnicity, nationality, ability, sexuality, and class, including transgender politics, masculinity, dis/ability, labor, transnationalism, postcolonialism and critical race theory. 

This story also appeared in the University of Arkansas News publication.