Professional Bio:  Jodi Vandenberg-Daves

Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and History

University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

Academic Background:

Ph.D, History, University of Minnesota (1995), with minor field program in the Center for Advanced Feminist Studies

B.A., Macalester College (1988)

Teaching Interests and Fields:

Jodi Vandenberg-Daves specializes in women’s history in the United States.  She has taught history and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies courses at UW-L since 1998, with an emphasis on making history inclusive and relevant for students, the community, and area teachers.  Her courses have ranged from labor history to African-American history as well as a variety of courses that link women’s history to the present:  “History of Feminist Thought”, “History of Motherhood in the United States”, “Women in the Modern United States”, and “Childhood in the United States” are her current regularly offered WGS/HIS classes.  She is also interested in women and leadership, offering a course within the WGSS department, and a course for women professionals through the Small Business Development Center, “Your Career, Your Life.”

Research and Service Interests

Jodi’s scholarship on women, motherhood, class, and education has appeared in The Journal of American History Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering, Mother Matters:  Motherhood as Discourse and Practice, Women’s Studies Quarterly, International Labor and Working-Class History, and History of Education.   She is editor and co-author of the book Making History:  A Guide to Historical Research Through the National History Day Program (ABC-Clio Schools, 2006), and her recent regional research on professional working women was published in the River Valley Business Review. Thanks to funding from a College of Liberal Studies Sabbatical Grant, Faculty Research Grant, and Faculty Development Grant, she is currently writing a book on the history of mothers and motherhood in the United States.  Its working title is Woman’s “One Vocation”:  The Making of Modern Motherhood in the United States.

Jodi has spent many years developing partnerships between K-12 teachers and higher education, especially through her directorship of two Teaching American History Grants between 2003 and 2009, funded by the U.S. Department of Education.  Jodi has been an advocate for women’s issues on her campus, especially on work-life balance issues.  She is a past recipient of the YWCA Tribute to Outstanding Women.