Biography
Mary Ann received her B.A. in Humanities and her M.S. in Instructional Psychology and Technology, both from BYU. As a graduate student, she designed training for professors across campus who teach the Introduction to Global Women’s Studies course, focusing on instructor positionality, trauma-informed teaching, and integrating questions of faith. Students in her classes will use books, films, articles, TED talks, music videos, and commercials to give language to their own experiences and to gain an understanding of people whose lives are unlike their own.
Current Courses
GWS 222
TTh: 4-5:15pm
240 CTB
Office Hours
F: 10am-12:00pm
3104 JFSB
Research Interests
Professor McFarland’s research interests revolve around troublesome knowledge, gendered language and its plasticity, the experience of Latter Day Saint sister missionaries, and working toward body neutrality in a visually-saturated culture.
Teaching Philosophy
Professor McFarland finds that creating an open and honest learning space where students can feel accepted and heard propels them on their path toward lifelong learning. She sees her own role as that of motivator, guide, and listener, and wants to model the process of learning more than she wants to dole out dollops of facts. She believes that empathy and understanding play a crucial role in students’ journey to self-actualization
Courses Taught
2024
● GWS 222
● GWS 360 R
2023
● GWS 222
2022
● GWS 222
Publications
Journal Article, Academic Journal
Lyon, Tania Rands, and Mary Ann Shumway McFarland. “Not Invited, but Welcome: The History and Impact of Church Policy on Sister Missionaries” in Dialogue 36, no. 3 (Fall 2003) pp. 71-101. www.dialoguejournal.com/articles/not-invite-but-welcome-the-history-and-i mpact-of-church-policy-on-sister-missionaries/
Other Writing
McFarland, Mary Ann Shumway. “Elizabeth Ann Whitney,” in Illuminating Ladies: A Coloring Book of Mormon Women (Amy Evans Hickman and Molly Hadfield, Eds). Boston: Exponent II, 2017.
McFarland, Mary Ann Shumway. “Huldah” in the “Women of the Bible” series Exponent II. August 2016.
the-exponent.com/women-of-the-bible-series-huldah/
McFarland, Mary Ann Shumway [Emma Shumway]. “A Marvelous Work and a Wonderbra” in Segullah, Spring 2007:4.
McFarland, Mary Ann Shumway [Emma Shumway]. “The Begonia Monologues” in Exponent II, Spring 2005:14.
Presentations
Lyon TR and MAS McFarland. “Stereotypes and the Sister Missionary” Latter-day Saint Women in the Twentieth Century Symposium of the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History, Provo, Utah. 2004.