Suzanne Belote-Shanley Presents “Women and War: The Lineage of Women Peacemakers”
November 23, 2010
Emmanuel College welcomed peace activist, poet and educator Suzanne Belote-Shanley to campus on November 18th for the "Women and War: The Lineage of Women Peacemakers" lecture, co-sponsored by the Department of English and the Center for Mission and Spirituality. Belote-Shanley addressed the question, "what legacy will you leave?" with the audience in the Janet M. Daley Library Lecture Hall.
She highlighted examples of well-known women and their legacies as peacemakers, such as Dorothy Day and her Catholic Worker movement, woman's rights activists Sojourner Truth and Lucretia Mott, and the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress, Jeannette Rankin, who voted against both world wars. A former professor at neighboring Simmons College in the 1970s, Belote-Shanley also recalled the impact she herself left on that community, working with students to establish a group called "Simmons for Survival," in response to the fear students had for their safety directly following the 1979 nuclear emergency at Three Mile Island. She encouraged students in the audience to continue to strive to make a difference on Emmanuel's campus and beyond.
"Maybe there is an Emmanuel version of Simmons for Survival here soon," she said.
Belote-Shanley received her Master of Arts in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo and a post-masters degree (MPhil) in English at Simmons. She has taught at Worcester State and Anna Maria College, as well as the Paulist Center in Boston and workshops and seminars at colleges throughout New England. She is a co-founder of the AGAPE Community in Central Massachusetts, a lay Catholic residential community committed to sustainability, prayer, nonviolence and witness, which she opened in 1982 with her husband.
