W&L’s Woodzicka is Second Speaker in “Equality and Difference” Series

By Erica Turman
September 28, 2017

“Woodzicka has done pioneering research on the interpersonal and social consequences of subtle forms of prejudice and discrimination. Most recently, she has been exploring the negative social effects of racist and sexist humor, and that is what she will be discussing with us in her lunchtime talk.”

Julie Woodzicka, Abigail Grigsby Urquhart Professor of Psychology at Washington and Lee University, is the second speaker in the 2017-18 “Equality and Difference” series, sponsored by the Roger Mudd Center for Ethics at W&L. This event will be held on Oct. 3 at 12:00 p.m. in the Hillel Multipurpose Room.

Woodzicka talk, titled “Are All Jokes Created Equal? Differential Effects of Group-Based Disparagement Humor,” is open to the W&L community.

Woodzicka joined the faculty at Washington and Lee in 2000, and co-taught W&L’s inaugural women’s and gender studies introductory course.

“Professor Woodzicka has done pioneering research on the interpersonal and social consequences of subtle forms of prejudice and discrimination,” said Angela Smith, Director of the Mudd Center. “Most recently, she has been exploring the negative social effects of racist and sexist humor, and that is what she will be discussing with us in her lunchtime talk.”

Also a writer, Woodzika is the co-author of numerous articles, including “It’s Just a (Sexist) Joke: Comparing Reactions to Sexist Versus Racist Communications” (2015) and “A Successful Model of Collaborative Undergraduate Research: A Multi-faculty, Multi-project, Multi-institution Team Approach” (2015).

In addition to being a member of several W&L committees, she has served as chairperson for W&L’s Science, Society and the Arts undergraduate research conference and the Institutional Review Board for Research with Human Subjects.

Woodzicka earned her B.A. at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, her M.A. at the University of Dayton and her Ph.D. from Boston College, spending the last two years of her program in residence at Yale University.

The Mudd Center was established in 2010 through a gift to the university from award-winning journalist Roger Mudd, a 1950 graduate of W&L. When he made his gift, Mudd said that “given the state of ethics in our current culture, this seems a fitting time to endow a center for the study of ethics, and my university is the fitting home.”