Melissa Spas
Stow, New York
Major: Women's Studies, Religious Studies
Minor: Values and Ethics in Social Action
”I love Allegheny—particularly the overarching emphasis upon making connections and educating the whole person.”
Women’s Studies offers a meaningful perspective to study all manners of ideas and realities,” says Melissa Spas. “It’s given me the analytical tools to think critically about the status quo and the courage to speak out about the intersecting oppressions and prejudices in the world.”
Melissa feels her two majors inform one another and have helped her develop a sense of “interconnectness.” “In many ways, coming to Women’s Studies through my first major, Religious Studies, has enabled me to find comfort in the rich diversity of ideas,” she says. “My intuitions were ‘named’ as part of a history of marginalization.
“Equality is a noble ideal,” says Melissa. “But without a concerted effort towards correction of past and present inequalities, we’re running in circles.” Her VESA minor provides the background and a means to correct some of these inequalities.
“An education is most valuable when it affects the way you choose to live your life,” she says. At Allegheny she addresses gender issues through the Ophelia Project and Eating Disorders Awareness Week and has sat on the Women’s Studies Steering Committee. A recent semester in Washington, D.C., gave Melissa a chance to put her “academic work into action.”
“I’m a very different woman than she who matriculated three years ago, and indescribably richer for it,” she says.
“Nothing I do will be unaffected by my education here.”
