EDITORS: The full schedule of Lane Hall Opening Celebration events, all free and open to the public, is available at http://www.umich.edu/~irwg/lane_open.html

ANN ARBOR—State Street in Ann Arbor between Washington and Liberty streets will be closed to traffic in the afternoon on Oct. 20 for a street fair that is part of the opening celebration of the renovated Lane Hall, new home to the University of Michigan Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG) and the U-M Women’s Studies Program. [Map of Central Campus, Lane Hall on left side] The Lane Hall celebration is the culmination of more than two years of planning and construction, according to IRWG Director Abigail J. Stewart. “The new Lane Hall reflects an unprecedented commitment by the University to scholarship and teaching on women and gender,” says Stewart, professor of psychology and women’s studies.”In this newly renovated space, undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, and staff will join together, learning, teaching, and researching about women and gender,” says Sidonie Smith, professor of English and director of Women’s Studies. “We will also be celebrating the excellence that has been Women’s Studies on this campus for the last 25 years.”

The public is invited to all the events associated with the opening celebration, including panel discussions, a film festival, and a variety of performances, activities, and displays. The celebration includes a noon to 4 p.m. street fair on State Street with musical groups and vendors. The street will be closed to traffic from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. A ribbon cutting ceremony and official dedication of Lane Hall, located at State and Washington streets, will take place at noon Oct. 20 in front of the building. U-M President Lee C. Bollinger, Provost Nancy Cantor, and members of the U-M Board of Regents are expected to attend, with formal presentations by Shirley Neuman, dean of the U-M College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, and Vice President for Research Fawwaz T. Ulaby. An Open House at Lane Hall will run from 12:30 to 4 p.m., with an exhibit of photographs on women at the U-M from 1870 to the present, from the Bentley Historical Library. Other photographs from the Bentley collection are on view at the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library and the Alumni Center. At 4 p.m. in Rackham Auditorium, the opening celebration continues with a keynote lecture by Johnnetta B. Cole, presidential distinguished professor of anthropology, women’s studies and African American studies at Emory University.

“We are enormously pleased that Dr. Cole will give the keynote address as we celebrate the opening of a wonderful new space dedicated to the Institute for Research on Women and Gender and the Women’ Studies Program,” says Provost Cantor. “Dr. Cole’s participation epitomizes our values—a commitment to thoughtful scholarship, strong leadership, and dedicated activism. She will be a source of inspiration and courage to all of us as we seek to share our minds so as to better understand what we want for ourselves and for each other, now and in the future.”

The keynote address will be followed by the presentation of two newly established annual awards. The Boyd/Williams Sisters Fund Dissertation Grant for Research on Women and Work 2000, will be presented to M. Theresa Pool, a graduate student in American Culture, for her ethnographic study of hairdressers and their clients. The Michigan Media Awards for outstanding coverage of issues related to women and gender will be presented to freelance writer Betty Rogers and Chicago Tribune reporter Judy Peres. The opening day celebration concludes with an 8 p.m. performance in Rackham Auditorium of the world premiere of Mail from Daphne and Apollo Remade, composed by U-M adjunct associate professor of music Enid Sutherland, to the setting of a poem by U-M poet Alice Fulton. For more information about the Lane Hall Opening Celebration, contact Alisha Fenty at (734) 764-9537.

orE-mail: mjnesbit@umich.edu

http://www.umich.edu/~irwg/lane_open.htmlInstitute for Research on Women and GenderLee C. BollingerMichigan Media Awardsmjnesbit@umich.edu