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A memorial to celebrate the life of pioneer Latina lesbian activist and beloved MALCS historian Yolanda Retter Vargas will be held at Metropolitan Community Church in West Hollywood on September 29th.

Yolanda passed away from cancer at her home in Los Angeles on August 18, 2007, after a short illness which stunned family and friends.

An activist and scholar, Yolanda was a major force in the early L.A. lesbian movement as a fierce advocate for lesbians of color. In her last two decades Yolanda became a highly-educated and much sought after librarian, archivist and editor.

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The intellectual independence and integrity of higher education’s classroom faculty have been under attack for some time—by the press, by conservative commentators, and by politicians. The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is convinced that it is time to take back the classroom on behalf of academic freedom. In a clear and carefully reasoned historic new report, we counter these attacks and lay out the principles of responsible college pedagogy. The full report, Freedom in the Classroom, is available in the September–October issue of Academe , our journal of record, and online.

The report differentiates instruction from indoctrination. It addresses demands for “balance” in the classroom and offers a very specific and limited disciplinary rationale for the relevance of balance. It argues forcefully that college instructors have the right—and, some would argue, the responsibility—to challenge their students’ most cherished beliefs.

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Chicana/Latina Studies: The Journal of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social calls for participation in the Writing Workshops at the 2007 MALCS Summer Institute at the University of Minnesota, St. Paul Campus, August 2-4.

The Writing Workshops are one of the Journal’s formal methods of creating a feminist editorial process. Following the spirit and mission of MALCS, the coeditors offer the workshop in order to institutionalize mentorship. Participants will come away from a workshop with clear recommendations for meeting internal criteria of Chicana/Latina Studies, specific direction about revision, and first-hand knowledge about our feminist editorial production process.

We encourage applications from writers at all professional levels. Two Writing Workshops will be offered this summer:

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