After many years of service and scholarship, Valerie Hegstrom is retiring from BYU and finishing her term as faculty coordinator of the Global Women’s Studies program. The impact she has had on the program and on the students involved has been immense, and we are deeply grateful for all she has done.
The new Global Women’s Studies faculty coordinator, effective this summer, will be Heather Belnap of BYU’s Department of Comparative Arts and Letters.
As she takes the reins of the program, Dr. Belnap says that she is aware of the hard work done by those who went before her. “I truly am humbled to be given this stewardship and feel the weight of the responsibility of keeping BYU’s GWS program thriving—the outgoing coordinator, Valerie Hegstrom, is truly a giant among women and has offered unparalleled leadership. I’m so grateful for her example and to be working again with such incredible students and dedicated faculty. GWS is the best program in all of BYU-land!”
Dr. Belnap holds degrees in humanities and history from BYU and earned a Ph.D. in History of Art from the University of Kansas. While she was a student, a few experiences cemented her interest in studying women. “While I had always been drawn towards women characters in literature who chafed against social constructions,” she explains, “I count my reading of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening in an undergraduate course as the moment I knew I wanted to focus on women’s work in my studies. My thesis considered the art criticism in Germaine de Staël’s novel Corinne, or Italy as a refusal of patriarchal rule and rhetoric, and my dissertation built on this to recover the contributions of women art critics in Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. A grant from BYU’s Women’s Research Institute (WRI) back in the late 1990s facilitated that work, and was really important to my identification as a feminist scholar.”
In 2001, she became a faculty member at BYU, where, she says, she “enjoyed the support of a number of women faculty members who were critical to mentoring me in how to forge my path as a successful disciple-scholar-mother. I was especially grateful to those who pushed for the creation of a generous family leave, as this helped immensely as I was establishing myself as an academic while having children.”
Dr. Belnap has been involved with women’s studies at BYU since it first became an official program. After the WRI dissolved in 2010, she says, “I was part of the group of women faculty who worked to create a new program for women’s studies at BYU. I served on the executive committee of this new entity, which is now the Global Women’s Studies program, until 2017.” It was at this point that she became connected to the Kennedy Center for International Studies in a new way, as she became the faculty coordinator for the European Studies program. She did this until 2023, then, only a year later, was asked to become the Global Women’s Studies coordinator.
“BYU’s Global Women’s Studies,” she explains, “is an academic program that not only offers a minor, but also serves as a hub for students and faculty committed to acknowledging the important contributions women have made throughout history and advancing women’s agency and opportunities in today’s world in order to foster a more Zion future.” The program does this through events, lectures (like the Colloquium lecture series), a study honor society, a student journal, and a faculty research group.
Dr. Belnap says, “We are committed to fostering a community for students and faculty alike that facilitates personal, social, and spiritual growth, and to me, that’s the greatest element of the program.”
The program, she goes on, “is designed so that GWS students learn to effectively communicate women’s accomplishments and challenges, and it encourages students to apply their knowledge in their own lives, to make informed choices about their own behavior and decisions, and to improve the lives of women and families and effect positive change in their communities.”
When asked why she thought it was important for students to get involved in women’s studies, she says, “In today’s world, it is particularly critical to acquire a deeper understanding of women—their histories, their contributions, their challenges, their rights, their needs—and to study these things and work toward women’s advancement in the light of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are truly privileged to be able to do this within BYU’s unique context, and with that privilege comes marvelous opportunities and sacred obligations.”
From her long association with Global Women’s Studies, Dr. Belnap understands the task before her: “Anyone acquainted with the Global Women’s Studies program will tell you it is one of the most robust programs at BYU,” she says. “My hope is to maintain its excellence and continue to develop the program in ways that will best serve our amazing students and faculty.”
She also hopes to help the program introduce service-oriented components and to commit to even more spiritually centered study and work. “Our world is in desperate need of more beacons of light,” she says, “and the GWS program and its members are well positioned to become the brightest of beams.”
Learn more about the Global Women’s Studies program here.