The WGSS Department is delighted to introduce Hafza Girdap as the 2023 winner of the Vivien Hartog Graduate Teaching Award.

This award is named in honor of Vivien Hartog, a Women’s and Gender Studies graduate certificate student who died before she could complete her Ph.D. in Sociology. This award goes to the graduate student teacher we think best exemplifies Vivien’s lifelong commitments to activism, teaching, and learning. Here’s a description of Vivien written by her family that captures something of the kind of person we are honoring with this award:

“In Vivien Hartog’s 55 years, she went through more identities than most could imagine. An incomplete list would include: rebellious daughter; actress in training; young mother, wife (3 times); scientologist; scourge of scientology; business woman; domestic help in a hotel; undergraduate; radical feminist and lesbian; graduate student in sociology and women’s studies. At every point she both threw herself into her new identity and at the same time, remained herself. And one way that she always remained herself was in her commitment to social justice and to human rights. She remade herself regularly, but she always understood her remaking as struggles on a larger stage. Particularly in her last decade, she saw her life though the lens of an international women’s movement.”

Professor Nancy Hiemstra (Hafza’s advisor) presented her with the award at our spring commencement ceremony. 

From left to right: Hafza Girdap, Nancy Hiemstra

Hafza has been an outstanding educator long before becoming a graduate instructor in our department. In Turkey, she worked in high school education for 15 years in various positions and schools, as an English teacher, Vice Principal, International Programs Coordinator, and Director of College Guidance.

After leaving Turkey for the United States in 2016, Hafza worked as an ESL instructor in Atlanta, Georgia. She also became a spokesperson and the Women’s Affairs Director for Advocates of Silenced Turkey, an organization dedicated to defending human and civil rights, a position which she still holds – and which frequently brings her to the United Nations, international venues, and community education forums to speak about the current political situation and women’s rights in Turkey.

Hafza moved to New York and joined our department as a graduate student in 2019. She completed her Masters in WGSS and began doctoral studies in 2020. In Fall 2022, Hafza passed her comprehensive exams and is now developing her dissertation project on Turkish women’s identity after international migration.

Hafza has taught multiple sections of our Intro to WGS courses, both in-person and online, plus a 200-level topics course on “Muslim Women’s Identity and Agency”. She has shown herself to be a dedicated instructor of undergraduates, who puts in a huge amount of time and energy to design and facilitate excellent learning experiences for her students.

Writing about her teaching philosophy, Hafza writes that she endeavors to “create the opportunities and design classes for the students to learn, to think critically, to develop an intellectual perspective, to broaden their minds, to raise awareness of the issues I aim to teach in the class, and to set a journey of self-exploration.”

She has received outstanding student evaluations of her courses, with comments like:

• Professor Girdap was so inviting and made her students feel comfortable where they can learn and discuss anything.
• I really enjoyed how interactive it was, as the whole class could easily become engaged in talking about relevant issues and how our own experiences relate to them.
• All of the information I learned was interesting and valuable. It helped me see the world from different lenses.

Hafza identifies 4 words that guide her, in teaching and in life in general: dream, determination, dedication, and perseverance.

Thank you, Hafza, for inspiring us. Congratulations on receiving the Vivien Hartog Graduate Student Award for Excellence in Teaching!