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Work that matters
Beth Richie calls herself an academic activist. 
It’s an apt description. For 30 years, Richie, professor of criminal justice, African-American, gender and women's studies, has been working for better treatment of black women.
She was named the UIC Woman of the Year in 2006, an award given by the Chancellor’s Committee on the Status of Women to a UIC woman who has consistently studied women’s issues and serves as an exemplary role model. She is also a 2006 University Scholar.
Richie believes academic research should ultimately affect her community and society as a whole. She researches the relationships among race, class and violence against women.
“We’re obligated to do work that matters and we care about,” she says.
And research others weren't doing.
“There was a group of us who were frustrated that our perspectives were falling outside the view of the more dominant class,” she says. “White feminists did not really address race and class issues.”
That frustration led Richie and colleagues to form INCITE!, a group dedicated to ending violence against women of color through research and activism. More than 2,000 people attended the 2002 conference at UIC. The group just published an anthology of critical writings, Color of Violence: the INCITE! Anthology.
The significance of her research has been recognized with grants from the Ford Foundation, the National Institute of Corrections, the National Institute of Justice, the MacArthur Foundation and the American Foundation for AIDS Research.
Richie is a dedicated mentor to graduate students and junior faculty. “Mentoring is important to me because I’ve been mentored,” she notes. “There are people throughout my life who have taught me important lessons.”
"I am deeply committed to urban public higher education and, to me, teaching at an institution like UIC is a privilege."
Reporting by Sabryna Cornish and Brian Flood, UIC News Bureau
Learn more>> UIC News articles about Richie
being named UIC Woman of the Year and a 2006
University Scholar