Feature Stories Campus Events All Stories

Ellen Mayock to Give Ernest Williams Professorship Inaugural Lecture

Ellen Mayock, professor of Romance Languages at Washington and Lee University, will give the Ernest Williams II Professorship Inaugural Lecture on Tuesday, Nov. 13, at 5 p.m. in Northen Auditorium.

The title of Mayock’s lecture is “Gender Shrapnel in the Workplace.” It is free and open to the public.

Mayock describes “gender shrapnel as a series of small explosions in the workplace that affect women and men and reveal an uneven gender dynamic at all levels of the organization. Gender shrapnel is damaging, even if the principal actors never intend or understand that the actions they take place at least one woman at a disadvantage and send the message to all male and female laborers that this type of disadvantage is the way of the workplace.  How do you describe a phenomenon that you have to experience to understand?

“This lecture will make vivid the concept of gender shrapnel by defining and describing concomitant terms and reviewing and analyzing current literature on women in the workforce,” Mayock continued.

Mayock is the author of “The ‘Strange Girl’ in Twentieth-Century Spanish Novels Written by Women” (UP of the South, 2004). She also is co-editor of “Feminist Activism in Academia. Essays on Personal, Political, and Professional Change” (McFarland, 2010) and “Ven conmigo! Holt Spanish Level 3 Practice and Activity Workbook” (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1996).

She has also written “Selection of poems: La Chingada, Dolores, Mariposas and Serpiente negra” which was published in the Spanish journal “Letras Femeninas,” (2012), as well as 17 journal articles, 13 book articles and 12 book reviews.

Mayock is the interim director of W&L’s Program in Latin American and Caribbean Studies for the current academic year. She has served as the faculty athletics representative since 2007, chairing the University Athletic Committee and overseeing the nomination process for the NCAA postgraduate scholarships, among other things. She was the director of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) at W&L from 2001 to 2010. She was the associate dean of the College, a rotating responsibility, from 2004-2006.

Mayock was awarded the Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia in 2010 and was among 12 outstanding faculty members from Virginia’s public and private colleges and universities to receive the award that year.

Mayock received her B.A. from the University of Virginia, her M.A. from Middlebury College and her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin.

The Ernest Williams II Professorship was established by an endowment in 1992 by Ernest Williams II, Class of 1938, and by Williams’ wife, Marjorie O. Williams.

News Contact:
Julie Cline
News Writer
jcline@wlu.edu
540-458-8954

If you know any W&L faculty who would be great profile subjects, tell us about them! Nominate them for a web profile.