Cohorts & Ambassadors

  • Black Women’s Initiative (BWI) 
  • Latinx Women’s Initiative (LWI) 
  • Afro-Latinx Women’s Initiative (ALWI)

Each cohort has graduate and undergraduate student ambassadors dedicated to the uplifting of Black and Latinx women and raising awareness of their unique experiences at the intersection of race and gender across campus.

Art & Wellness

WOCI includes targeted activities centered around common resistive practices through art and community, as well as health and well-being.

Research Initiatives

A strategic aim of WOCI is to strengthen studies and research regarding women of color in academia. Scholarly presentation proposals and papers provide an avenue to fulfill this aim.

  • Relevant works:
    • Atwaters, 2019. Mediating Difference, Deviance, and Resistance through Artistic Animation within Dance and 3D Virtual Worlds. 4S Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA.
      • Abstract: In recent years, images of conflict and contestation between local police officers and civilians have become commonplace across public spaces, television networks, and social media platforms. Deviance and difference are mediated in various digital and artistic forms, produced and distributed by organized networks and institutions, but increasingly by the everyday user of social/new media technologies.This paper offers lessons learned from a virtual ethnographic comparative study examining how 3-D virtual world users negotiate conflict and contested differences through real-time interaction compared to how SKid dancers negotiate protest through artistic embodiment within a 3D performance environment. Skid is an aspect of the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Innovative Arts and Technology Program, produced by KOMANSÉ Dance Theater.
    • Bright, Atwaters, Ocasio, 2020. Collaborative Activism: How to Maintain Healthy Relationships with Women of Color & Support their Efforts as Activists, Feminists, and Scholars. Faculty Women of Color in the Academy National Conference, Blacksburg, VA.
      • Abstract: This workshop delves into how to develop healthy professional practices, analyze aspects of healthy relationships, and foster tools to cultivate a strong environment and network for continued activism, scholarship, and feminism. The expectations associated with the “designated group representative” role can become toxic if women of color are not adequately prepared to navigate the environment successfully. In response, workshop participants will be invited to interactively explore the power and challenges associated with carrying these titles and develop healthy circles and practices among women of color within higher education.