My second source that I have chosen is an article of exclusive profiles that was written by students at UWEC called “Vision”. This article includes interviews of many past UWEC faculty members that have made a change at our University. The main interview within this article is Sarah Harder. A student writes this article however; the information comes from Sarah herself. This is why I find this source such a credible one. There is nothing within this article that I can necessarily disagree with since it came right from the subject I am researching. After reading this, I have a better understanding of who Sarah Harder is.
Sarah Harder was born on September 9th in 1937 in Chicago Illinois. Growing up she seemed to but heads with her parents quite often however, her parents always supported her in what she was doing. Her father was Swedish who ran a small hardware store in their town. He was also an active member in the Lion’s Club. Sarah’s mother was Irish. She was a ballerina who founded her own dance school then ended up helping out with the family hardware store. Sarah’s mom put on local school operettas.
At the age of 9 Sarah moved to a small town. In 1958 she married her first husband. Then after two years of school she moved to LaCrosse WI with him. They had two kids together. Shortly after, they divorced. Sarah then went on to finish her undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin LaCrosse where she had earned a BA and BS double majoring in History and English in 1963. In 1966 she earned her Master’s degree in English at Bowling Green State University. Soon she had met and married her second husband and they had another child. In 1986 her and her new husband joined the UWEC English department. She would start as an instructor and he would begin on a tenure track. This is where Sarah states that she had her “awakening” to feminism.
In 1971 Sarah would have her fourth child. She had requested to have two weeks of sick leave. Her request being denied, she contacted the chancellor to challenge the ruling. Once again, her request still denied. She then went to the chancellor one more time and stated that if things did not change before she went to the hospital that she would bring press back with her and show the world how discriminating it was to women. Shortly after the UW system for maternity leave policy would be changed.
This is just the beginning; the article goes on about the different organizations that Sarah was in. It states that she still lives in Eau Claire WI today and had 4 children and 11 grandchildren. She is still very active in her community today. I believe that this article is super helpful for my research. It gives me such a better understanding of who Sarah Harder is and where she came from. These are all new things I learned about her. It will only inspire me to look further into the other changes that Sarah Harder made throughout the years.
Work Cited
Korb, Marci. “Sarah Harder”. Vision. n.d. Pages 3-5. www.uwec.edu/Wmns/news/upload/Vision-Sarah-Harder.pdf. Wed 30 Oct. 2013
Although I like how much information you included about who Sara is, and where she came from, I don’t really understand what her impact on the world around her was. Maybe you could include how her being brought up in such a way caused her to do such great things with her time. It might be useful as well to include the information of rhetorical terms and how they effected the context of the article you read and how they also may have helped you in learning things you may not have known before. Overall it looks like you have a lot of information about Sarah, the next step is piecing it together. Good work!
I agree with you, time to piece it all together! Thanks for your input! Writing this blog gave me a better understanding of who she was which is why i choose to write more about background information which will give me a bases for looking into what she accomplished! Thanks!
I like how you gave us background information about Sarah and where she came from but I feel like since your research question is what did she accomplish in her years as faculty at UWEC I think you should try and find information more on what she actually did. You did a great job of talking about the maternity leave policy she had changed, but talking more about that would’ve been more relevant to your question. Talking about how long it took, what was the exact process she had to go through, why it got so much press, talk about feminism at that time. I think this would be great for your readers to know because it is also more context which help your paper, other than that you’re doing a great job!
Thank you so much! I like to hear these things to know what you guys want to hear about. I agree with you in looking at more of what she did and not who was she. This resource gives me a better understanding of who she is and maybe why she chose to fight for feminism. I will being looking more in depth as to the processes she went through to change things and what she changed. Thanks for your input!
I like your background information on Sarah Harder because until now I had no idea who she was and it gave me some information about her and what she wants. I think it would be beneficial to dig into deeper information about your initial research question, because I am a little confused on how her impact on the world around her ties into what she accomplished at UWEC as a faculty member. Maybe try and find if she did anything as a faculty member that tied into her views/beliefs. Nice Work!
Thanks! I will definitely dig deeper and let you all know!