Miami University Regionals faculty duo receive book award

Written by Mary C. Dillon, Marketing & Communications

A pair of faculty members from Miami University Regionals recently received an award for their book on sexual justice language and policy in higher education around the concept of consent.

Dr. Theresa Kulbaga from the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Writing paired with Dr. Leland Spencer from the Department of Interdisciplinary and Communication Studies to write “Campuses of Consent: Sexual and Social Justice in Higher Education.” The book, which was published in fall 2019, received the Outstanding Book Award at the Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender’s 43rd annual conference, which was held virtually October 1-3. 

In presenting the award, Dr. Kendra Rivera of Lane Community College noted that the award committee praised the book as "an impressive and urgent book that provides a clear constructive critique of consent and offers fruitful re-imaginings of what the concept can mean.” 

The committee “appreciated the salient links to trans and gender nonconforming students, as well as the educated and smart research that went into it. This book is readable, teachable and necessary,” Rivera said.

Written for scholars and university administrators, “Campuses of Consent” offers a provocative critique of sexual justice language and policy in higher education around the concept of consent. Complicating the idea that consent is plain common sense, “Campuses of Consent” shows how normative and inaccurate concepts about gender, gender identity and sexuality erase queer or trans students’ experiences and perpetuate narrow, regressive gender norms and individualist frameworks for understanding violence.