Rutgers University in New Jersey recently announced that it had raised more than $2 million to fund the Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture, and Feminist Studies. The campaign to raise money to fund the endowed chair is a joint project of the Institute for Women’s Leadership, the School of Communication and Information, and department of women’s and gender studies at the university. The goal of the campaign is to raise $3 million.
Steinem is a graduate of Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She funded Ms. magazine in 1972 and remains as a consulting editor. Steinem was active in the founding of the Women’s Action Alliance, the National Women’s Political Caucus, the Women’s Media Center. In 2013, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Alison R. Bernstein, director of the Institute for Women’s Leadership, stated that “Gloria’s birthday is at the end of March. Our goal is to raise the remaining $900,000 so that we can announce that the chair is fully endowed on or before that special day.”
The university hopes to have the inaugural holder of the Steinem Endowed Chair in place for the 2016-17 academic year. The holder of the chair will teach, conduct research, and lead seminars relating to increasing gender diversity in the media industry.