The International Studies program celebrates IS major Claire Player of Mount Vernon, Iowa, who received two scholarships at the 2022 Celebration of Excellence and Achievement Among Women awards ceremony.

The annual Celebration of Excellence and Achievement Among Women event honors women who have made contributions to gender equity in academics, athletics, and service at the University of Iowa and beyond. Claire was awarded two scholarships—the Margaret P. Benson Memorial Scholarship and the Kristin K. Lippke Memorial Scholarship—at the virtual awards ceremony held on April 6, 2022.

The Margaret P. Benson Memorial Scholarship is provided on behalf of the Women’s Resource and Action Center (WRAC) and recognizes qualified women students who are committed to gender equity, diversity, and social activism. Player received the award in recognition of her work as a victim advocate with RVAP, as well as her involvement with organic farming and political activism.

The Kristin K. Lippke Memorial Scholarship is awarded to undergraduate students majoring in Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies (GWSS) or Social Justice (SJUS). As a junior majoring in Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies as well as International Studies, Player says she has come to realize how foundational gender relations are to the way that global processes unfold. She is particularly interested in equity as it relates to food systems and the relationship between people and land.

Player says these scholarships will allow her to spend more time researching for her thesis next year. In her thesis, she plans to continue exploring issues of equity and social justice in agriculture, “interrogating the way colonialism imposes ontologies and land ethics that sever the relationship between humans and the natural world, entangled with hierarchies of power that undermine a diversity of ways of knowing and engaging with the Earth through agriculture.”

“I am incredibly grateful for this scholarship. It has given me more time to focus on doing research on my own time, as I am gearing up to write a thesis next year.”

The International Studies program congratulates Claire on these outstanding achievements.