“Goodbye, Nebraska” – QuaranZine Flash Fiction

During the COVID-19 crisis, I joined together with others in my community to create a zine anthology. All of these stories centered on the following prompt:

“The dominant culture that we live in frequently pushes us to prioritize our relationship with a romantic, monogamous partner over other relationships with friends, family, and neighbors. Some ways we see this are in the expectations to cohabit with our partner, formalize the relationship through legal and religious ceremony, (for women in particular) to change our names in marriage, and for partners to share financial & material resources with each other. Create a culture where this is no longer the norm. Describe the alternative ways humans build, celebrate, or formalize relationships with each other in that world. Note: you do not need to create something “better than” what we have now, nor do you have to make a culture that you would want to live in. 1000 word limit. All genres welcome.”

Here’s the story I wrote, titled Goodbye, Nebraska.

“I’m moving out.” Sharie was nervous and overwhelmed. Maybe she was just whelmed. Regardless, she had anticipated that the news would be a lot to process for everyone at the table. “I’m moving in with Grace. Just us. I’m… monogamous.”

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“A lot of the challenges I run into are a level of political disengagement in engineering”

I am so grateful for the write up about my research and activism done by Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Oregon State University.

Andrea Haverkamp is a PhD candidate in Environmental Engineering, with a minor in Queer Studies at Oregon State University. Her work is in engineering education, which explores the student and faculty experiences in engineering, right from curriculum to learning practices and pedagogy and also looks at diversity, inclusion and equity in the classroom.

Haverkamp is also President of the Coalition of Graduate employees (CGE), representing over 1800 graduate employees at OSU, “I think labor union activism is a critical action-oriented feminist praxis,” she says.

Read the article here, or click through for the text below.

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KMUZ Labor Report with Andrea Haverkamp of the Coalition of Graduate Employees at OSU

I recently spoke on KMUZ Community Radio in Salem, Oregon about how labor unions are fighting for reform in higher education and how this connects to creating a just, equitable, and socially minded campus community.

Adapted excerpt after the jump – check the link here:
KMUZ Willamette Wakeup Labor Report with Andrea Haverkamp

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Boots Riley On Power, Art, and the Radical Dr. King

Audio of the event – Click Here

Transcript February 2, 2020

Laborwave Radio presents a reproduction of audio from a live discussion between Boots Riley and Andrea Haverkamp. The event was organized by the Coalition of Graduate Employees (CGE 6069) and King Legacy Advisory Board (KLAB) to honor the legacy of the radical Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and the 20th Anniversary of CGE.

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Interfaith Engineering Ethics – Climate Change and responsibility in V’haya Im Shamoa

During Yom Kippur morning services yesterday I felt a completely new interpretation and meaning for my own sense of ethics as an engineer embedded within the Sh’ma. As engineers we are all guided by a sense of ethics – whether we realize it or not. These ethics are learned, taught, and honed in our lives before we become engineers and continue to develop throughout our careers. They can come from engineering education, but they also can come from our faith traditions or from interfaith dialogue. I believe there is a lot of room to reflect on the numerous ways we internalize ethics and how they relate to the engineering profession. In particular, I think it is worthwhile to add spiritual ethics as items of consideration and discussion. In this post I wish to talk about what I see as our ethical commitments to the climate as told in the second paragraph of the Sh’ma. 

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Feminist Killjoy with Andrea Haverkamp

Branching Out

Welcome to our debut episode of Branching Out! This week, I talked to Andrea Haverkamp about gender dynamics in engineering. Listen to the audio from this episode HERE!

  • Photo by Robert Bye on Upsplash

You can find Andrea at:SJ Engineers. The sources we reference in this episode are:

Follow us on Twitter @branchoutpod!

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Advancing Nonbinary & Transgender Engineering Students at SWE Hawaiian Islands

I am so happy to share the full video and my slides from the May 25th 2019 SWE Hawaiian Islands event titled “More Work To Do in STEM for Diversity and Inclusion – A Conversation on Underrepresented Genders.” The event was so wonderful and opened up space to discuss Māhū gender in Native Hawaiian culture, (de)colonization and gender activism, trans & nonbinary experiences and identities, and where organizations such as the Society of Women Engineers can go to advance inclusion and support.

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