While many University students have gone on to become activists, few participated in sit-ins at age 6. And while many may be legacy students, even fewer can claim their Civil War veteran family members worked for the University. Over 100 years after her great-grandfather began working on Gro unds, Ginger Moran continues her family legacy at the University and works to campaign for social causes. Through her work with the University's Women's Center, Iris: A Magazine for Thinking Young Women and SWAG 310, "Gender and Print Media," Moran, associate director and chief operating officer of the Women's Center, gets to combine all her passions: women's issues, writing and teaching.
A wahoo work ethic
It was with the cracking of a safe at the end of the 19th century that Moran's family began its long tradition of working at the University. Moran said the University bursar died of a stroke, leaving the University without the combination to its safe full of money and books.
"For reasons I don't know ... my great-grandfather was well-known to have some ability with cracking safes," Moran said.
With the safe successfully opened, the University did not compensate Moran's great-grandfather with the expected cash reward. Instead, officials hired him as the bursar, Moran said, noting that his qualifications as an accountant and the fact that he could break into the safe likely contributed to the decision to hire him.
And so with an untraditional admittance to the University, the Moran family began its legacy of more than 100 years of University employment.
Moran said her great-grandfather's daughter was the University registrar for 40 years, her mother worked at Newcomb Hall and her father was both the director of the University Press and the oral historian for the University. Moran added that she worked at Newcomb Hall while in high school.
Growing up, 60s style
When she was growing up, Moran said her father was very politically active because "there was a lot to be active about." For example, Moran was supposed to enter first grade at the same time state officials repealed the compulsory school attendance law as a way of opposing the integration of public schools. Moran was not just witnessing the changes around her, but was participating in them herself.
"I was in sit-ins when I was 6 years old protesting segregated restaurants here," she said.
Moran's civil rights activism did not stop as she grew older. In 1970, Moran was admitted as part of the inaugural College first-year class including women. Although she was accepted to the University, she did not immediately attend.
"It was the 60s and you couldn't do anything in a straight line," she said. "Some people did, but I didn't."
Moran said she attended Guilford College in Greensboro, N.C. for a year and a half and then taught in Europe before enrolling at the University in 1973.
Moran said she did not experience prejudice during her time at the University for being a woman. She said she believed this was the case because women's entrance into the University community in 1970 followed a time of cultural change during which student strikes and protests against the war had taken place, creating a more liberal environment.
"I think the ground had been prepared by the time women actually arrived," she said.
Moran left the University with both a bachelor's and a master's degree in English and went on to earn her doctorate at the University of Houston, where she said she studied creative writing and enjoyed the "anything goes" atmosphere of Houston. When graduation day came, Moran received her doctorate in the morning, got married in the afternoon and moved to Alabama the next day. After working at a Jesuit institution, Spring Hill College, and then at the historically black Fisk University, she returned to the University of Virginia in 2000.
A home base
Moran said that upon returning to the University, she acquired her current position as senior associate director and chief operating officer of the Women's Center.
The Women's Center is "extremely well known and well respected among university women's centers," Moran said. "Our director actually literally wrote the book on women's centers."
Moran said the Women's Center is unique in that it focuses on teaching, while other universities' women's centers are service-oriented. She said the Women's Center's programs are all run by University faculty and said each program is associated with a course.
"We really are a place that marries theory and practice," she said.
The Women's Center's programs include counseling services, the Young Women Leaders Program, Sexual and Domestic Violence Services and the Diversity and Advocacy Program. The center also oversees the publication of Iris magazine, for which Moran serves as the managing editor.
Iris:a magazine for thinking young women
Iris, Moran said, is supposed to be something like a cross between O magazine and The Atlantic Monthly.
"Our mission is to illuminate the path for young women," Moran said, noting that this is done by examining the wide-ranging issues confronting young women such as careers, health, politics, fashion and more.
Graduate College student Katy Shively, the designer of the Iris Web site currently in development, said the magazine consists of articles, fiction, short essays and writings that deal with the issues pertinent to young women.
Shively said the Web site will likely spark more interest in the print version of Iris, because it will contain more content than the physical magazine.
"The two are just very complementary," she said.
Moran said everything in Iris is supposed to be "uplifting, inclusive and literate."
"You can take on very hard issues, but take them on from the point of view of somebody who's found a way of coming to grips with them," Moran said.
Moran brings this belief of the inclusivity of different views to her teaching in a course associated with Iris.
SWAG 310 "Gender and Print Media"
Though the title might seem unusual, Moran explained she is interested in using this course to explore cultural contradictions.
"What is the conflict, if there is one, between feminist politics and reading ELLE?" she asked. "We don't have any answer to that. We're just kind of sitting at that place."
Moran said she feels women's studies in general is an important subject for students to learn about, and the benefits it offers are not limited to women.
"That kind of strengthening of women and enriching ... women's sense of themselves is great for men, and it's great for our children," she said.
Moran explained the advantages of women's studies by recalling her experience at Fisk University. When she started teaching at Fisk, having come from a very liberal, politically correct background, she wondered, "Why not integrate?" She said her students taught her why they valued their academic setting.
"It was truly the only time in their lives, as American citizens, that everything they did had to do with their own heritage," she said.
Moran said women's studies has similar importance for women, allowing them to fully immerse themselves in the triumphs and hardships of women.
Graduate College student Lauren Russo, associate editor of Iris and a teaching assistant for SWAG 310, said Moran is fun, creative and enjoyable to work with. She said Moran is good at seeing the big picture, whether it be with something having to do with the Women's Center or the magazine.
With Moran's many activities, she is currently only teaching SWAG 310. However, Moran said, if her schedule permitted, she would like to teach
more in the future.
"I just find the classroom so alive," she said.
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