Kristin Lems is an American musician, singer-songwriter, feminist, and author/educator in the field of teaching English as a Second Language (ESL).
Lems grew up in Evanston, Illinois and started singing at a young age. [1] She has an A.B. from The University of Michigan (1972) and earned master's degrees in West Asian Studies (1975) and Teaching English as a Second Language (1983) from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She also earned a Doctorate of Education in Reading and Language from the National College of Education at National Louis University (2003). [2] She spent time on a Fulbright fellowship training teachers in Algeria. [3] [ when? ] In 1993, Lems joined the faculty of National Louis University, and as of 2022 she is a professor there. [2]
Lems' is known for her music and musical performances, for advocating for the Equal Rights Amendment, and for her work in the teaching of English as a second language.
Lems organized a local Womenfolk's Festival in Illinois that occurred on November 16, 1973. [4] After that, she became lead organizer for the first National Women's Music Festival that was held on the campus of the University of Illinois in 1974. [5] [6] [7] Lems founded the festival because she wanted to provide more opportunities for women to perform, [8] and she was particularly motivated after attending a folk festival with no women artists. [9] She continued as the lead organizer through 1978. [10] [11]
Lems has performed in concerts around the United States, and is primarily known for singing in support of the Equal Rights Amendment, most notably with her song the Ballad of the ERA. [12] [13] In 1978, she described her goal of bringing music both to people who are politically motivated and women in general. [14]
Lems received the Humanist Heroine Award from the American Humanist Association in 1994. [16] In 1996 the Freedom from Religion Foundation awarded her with their Freethought Heroine Award. [17] In 2021, the Illinois Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages/Bilingual Education awarded Lems the Elliot Judd Outstanding Teacher Award. [18]
Urbana is a city in and the county seat of Champaign County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2020 census, Urbana had a population of 38,336. It is a principal city of the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, which had 236,000 residents in 2020.
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the flagship institution of the University of Illinois System. With over 59,000 students, the University of Illinois is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the United States.
The Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, also known as Champaign–Urbana and Urbana–Champaign as well as Chambana (colloquially), is a metropolitan area in east-central Illinois. As defined by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the metropolitan area has a population of 235,608 as of the 2023 U.S. Census Bureau estimate, which ranks it as the 201st largest metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. The area is anchored by the principal cities of Champaign and Urbana, and is home to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system.
Bruno Nettl was an American ethnomusicologist and academic of Czech birth. A central figure of ethnomusicology, he was among the discipline's most influential scholars. Nettl's research interests varied widely; he wrote on music of the Blackfoot people, Iran, Southern India and particularly the scope and methods of ethnomusicology as a discipline. His lengthy teaching-career centered on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where his many students included Stephen Blum and Philip V. Bohlman.
The Illinois Fighting Illini are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The university offers 10 men's and 11 women's varsity sports.
AMASONG is a lesbian/feminist amateur choir based in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. The group was created by Kristina Boerger in 1990. The group consists of about sixty women who perform female-oriented, folkloric, and classical music.
The Marching Illini is the marching band of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The Marching Illini is an organization which annually includes approximately 400 students enrolled in the University of Illinois, and Parkland College. It was founded in 1868 and primarily performs at Illini football games as well as other events around campus.
Shahrzad Mojab is an academic activist and professor, teaching at the Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education and Women and Gender Studies Institute, at the University of Toronto. Shahrzad has been living in Canada since 1986 with her lifelong partner, colleague and comrade, Amir Hassanpour, and their son, Salah.
The Illinois Fighting Illini baseball team is the varsity intercollegiate athletic team of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Champaign, Illinois, United States. The team competes in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I and are members of the Big Ten Conference.
Kate Smurthwaite is a British comedian and political activist. She has appeared on British television and radio as a pundit, offering opinion and comment on subjects ranging from politics to religion.
Anne Nicol Gaylor was an American atheist and reproductive rights advocate. She co-founded the Freedom from Religion Foundation and an abortion fund for Wisconsin women. She wrote the book Abortion Is a Blessing and edited The World Famous Atheist Cookbook. In 1985 Gaylor received the Humanist Heroine Award from the American Humanist Association, and in 2007 she was given the Tiller Award by NARAL Pro-Choice America.
CatherineJ. Murphy is an American chemist and materials scientist, and is the Larry Faulkner Professor of Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). The first woman to serve as the head of the department of chemistry at UIUC, Murphy is known for her work on nanomaterials, specifically the seed-mediated synthesis of gold nanorods of controlled aspect ratio. She is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019.
Cheryl Glenn is a scholar and teacher of rhetoric and writing. She is currently Distinguished Professor of English and Women’s Studies Director at Pennsylvania State University.
The Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is located on the 3rd floor of the University Library. The library is one of the largest special collections repositories in the United States. Its collections, consisting of over half a million volumes and three kilometers of manuscript material, encompass the broad areas of literature, history, art, theology, philosophy, technology and the natural sciences, and include large collections of emblem books, writings of and works about John Milton, and authors' personal papers.
Sally Gregory Kohlstedt is an American historian of science. She is a professor in the Department of Earth Sciences and in the Program in History of Science and Technology at the University of Minnesota. Kohlstedt served as the president of the History of Science Society from 1992 to 1993. Her research interests focus on the history of science in American culture and the demographics of scientific practice in institutions such as museums and educational institutions, including gender participation.
John Garvey was an American musician, orchestra leader, and academic who played viola in the Walden String Quartet for 23 seasons, introduced a jazz curriculum at the University of Illinois, and created its Jazz Big Band which he led until his retirement from the university in 1991. The jazz band dominated collegiate jazz festival awards in its early days and in 1969 was chosen by the state department to tour the USSR and Eastern Europe. Many members of Garvey's jazz bands went on to successful careers as professional musicians and academics.
Lana F. Rakow is a professor emerita of communication at the University of North Dakota and author of Gender on the Line: Women, the Telephone, and Community Life (1992). In 2000, she was identified as a top woman scholar in journalism and mass communication, and her research results were reported by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication on the Status of Women. She also has numerous other published works that are primarily in the fields of communication and feminist theory.
Rochelle Gutierrez is a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Her main focus is changing the way in which mathematics is taught to the minority and the effects of race, class and language on teaching and learning.
Joella Hardeman Gipson-Simpson was an American musician, mathematician, and educator who became the first African American student at Mount St. Mary's College in Los Angeles.
Dr. Deborah J. Curtis was a music educator and the twelfth President of Indiana State University. She was the first woman to hold that position, she was appointed president 2018, and retired in 2024. She was replaced by Mike Godard.