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Employee Recognition

‘The Oscars for Gender Equity’

Equity for Women Awards
In February, five members of the NC State community received Equity for Women Awards during the Sisterhood Dinner. They are (from left to right) Sarah Bowen, Annie Hardison-Moody, Pamarah Gerace, Jennifer Garrett and Rose Amburose.

Each year at NC State, the Women’s Center and the Council on the Status of Women host the Sisterhood Dinner, which includes a presentation of the Equity for Women Awards. The dinner is held annually in February and precedes the university’s monthlong recognition of women in March, when the country celebrates Women’s History Month. At NC State, you may see the month referred to by a different name: Women’s HERstory Month.

The Equity for Women Award recognizes faculty, staff and students for their contributions and accomplishments when it comes to advocating for gender equity. The theme for this year’s dinner was “Re-envisioning an Equitable Workplace.” Remarks given during the dinner highlighted that 2023 marks 60 years since the passage of the Equal Pay Act, a federal law that prohibits gender-based wage discrimination, and called attention to the fact that women are still fighting for true equity in the workplace. Eighteen members of the campus community — 16 individuals and a group of two — were nominated to receive Equity for Women Awards. A committee selected three individual award winners and a group winner.

“The dinner is kind of like the Oscars for gender equity on campus,” said Janine Kossen, director of the Women’s Center. “We celebrate and recognize all of the amazing contributions people are making to advance gender equity across campus. Without a space like this to uplift those accomplishments, we might not know about all the great work being done on our campus.”

This year’s winners of the Equity for Women Awards were:

Faculty Winner

Jennifer Garrett
Associate Director for Organizational Design, Equity and Talent, NC State University Libraries

Garrett

Jennifer Garrett has been a leader in expanding the Libraries’ equity-based recruitment practices. Her efforts directly resulted in the Libraries’ largest, most competitive and most diverse pools ever. 

Garrett was also a leader in the Libraries’ Salary Equity Task Force. She collaborated with a small internal team to identify salary inequities based on gender and race for the Libraries’ employees. The task force determined that on average, women of color were paid less than their peers. As a result of a recommendation by the group, funds were allocated to address 100% of the identified wage gaps.

Staff Winner

Pamarah Gerace
Director, University Student Legal Services, Division of Academic and Student Affairs

Gerace

Pamarah Gerace serves as the director of Student Legal Services, a role she has held since the creation of the office in 1987. For the past 35 years, Gerace and her small but mighty team have supported countless students who have experienced domestic/dating violence, sexual assault and stalking. As a direct consequence of Gerace’s legal support over the years, student survivors have been able to stay in school and continue their efforts to attain their academic and career goals.

Student Winner

Rose Amburose
Sophomore, College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Amburose

Rose Amburose’s commitment to feminism and gender-based equity runs deeper than surface-level activism. Her dedication to service and leadership when it comes to gender-based equity is strategic, thorough and impressively sophisticated. Last fall, she built the Progressive Students Task Force from the ground up, securing an advisor, acquiring financial support, building connections and organizing the Reproductive Rights March, which had over 200 attendees. 

Group Winners

Sarah Bowen
Professor and Director of Graduate Programs in Sociology, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Bowen

Annie Hardison-Moody
Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Programs, Department of Agricultural and Human Sciences, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Hardison-Moody

Sarah Bowen and Annie Hardison-Moody’s scholarship centers women’s voices and experiences. They focus on equity as they work to better understand the root causes that contribute to food insecurity and diet-related health disparities and the most effective ways to address both. One of their core areas of research is on “carework.” Specifically, they examine how women do the daily work of feeding families in the face of exclusionary and unequal structures that contribute to race, class and gender inequalities and how “foodwork” can be a source of both empowerment and oppression.