May 10, 2010 - CSUB hosts its second annual interdisciplinary symposium "Gender Matters" Friday, May 21, from 1-6 p.m. in the Student Union Multipurpose Room.

This free event focuses on student and faculty research and presentations on subjects including gender and suicide, gender in art, domestic violence issues among young men and women, and women in literature and in Western films. Students have prepared posters and will be available to discuss their research ideas with attendees. Following light refreshments during the opening poster presentations, students will present short papers, followed by a student panel which will examine selected pieces of literature and films from the perspective of gender.

A community panel is scheduled at 2 p.m. featuring notable stay-at-home dads.  The panelists, who will be featured in the June edition of Bakersfield Life magazine, will field questions from the floor about their choice to be caretakers and how their decision is called into question because of their gender.

Another community resource panel concludes the schedule from 4-4:45 p.m., featuring guests representing the Kern County Probation Department's Victim Witness program, CSUB's Safe Zone project, the Alliance Against Sexual Assault, and Suzy's Law, a non-profit for suicide prevention run by CSUB students.

The symposium concludes with a one-act play by CSUB Theater student Michael Mejia, entitled "Unwrapped."

"This promises to be an exciting opportunity for CSUB and the community to see what our students and faculty are developing as far as understanding gender variables in many disciplines," said chair of CSUB's Women and Gender Studies Committee Anne Duran. She noted that more than 200 students attended last year's symposium.

For more information about this event, which is free and open to the public, please call Duran at 661-654-2298.