Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program

Michelle Kelsey is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication. She is also the Director of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Michelle researches interests include rhetoric, identity, social movements, and feminist theory.  

Janet Badia is the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She served as director of the Women’s Studies Program from 2009-2021, when she left the position to become Dean of the newly formed College of Liberal Arts. Prior to joining the faculty at what was then IPFW, she was an associate professor of English at Marshall University in Huntington, WV. 

She is the author of Sylvia Plath and the Mythology of Women Readers (2011) and co-editor of Reading Women: Literary Figures and Cultural Icons from the Victorian Age to the Present (2005), in addition to numerous journal articles and essays. Her research interests include women’s literature, feminist theory, the history of women’s reading, and the reception of American women’s writing since the 1950s. 

In her spare time, she enjoys gardening, kayaking and hiking, and hanging out on her screened porch with her cats. 

Learn More About Dean Badia