By Estela Hernandez, public relations and events specialist, University of Utah Office for Equity and Diversity and L.K. Amos Award Selection Committee

Kim Hackford-Peer, associate director of Gender Studies Program, has been selected for the 2016 Linda K. Amos Award for Distinguished Service to Women. The award will be presented to Hackford-Peer at the Women’s Week keynote address scheduled for Thursday, March 24, at noon in the Union Ballroom.

This award, presented annually, recognizes a staff or faculty member who has selflessly given time and energy to improve the educational and/or working environment for women at the U and represents the ideals and actions of Linda K. Amos, for whom the award is named.

Amos was the founding chair of the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women and served as associate vice president of Health Sciences and the dean of the College of Nursing.  She is professor emerita of nursing.

Hackford-Peer supports equity and diversity through “curriculum design; teaching; advising; mentoring; student support; university policy; administrative work; grant-writing; and, in her example, warmth and endlessly generous manner,” said Susie Porter, director of Gender Studies Program. “She is a life-line for many students who identify as queer. She is a rare confidant and support for students for whom their identity as ‘woman’ may not always be recognized by others, or which may be a complicated identity for themselves.”

Hackford-Peer earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Education, Culture and Society in 2010 and joined the University of Utah as assistant professor (lecturer) and associate director for the Gender Studies Program in 2011.  Her responsibilities include academic advising, curriculum planning and development, teaching and oversight of graduate teaching assistants. Hackford-Peer sits on various campus committees, such as the General Education Curriculum Committee, focused on the diversity requirement, and is keenly aware of the lasting impact that her contributions to these committees will make for current and future students. One example of her important contributions to curriculum design include the acquisition of grant funding for a two-semester cohort course that brings students into community-engaged learning in partnership with Neighborhood House and the U’s Women’s Resource Center, where university students take classroom learning in gender equity and diversity into practical settings, such as early childhood education.

Hackford-Peer also collaborated with students to co-chair the 2014 Pride Week Committee. She is an important advisor and advocate for students across campus. Hackford-Peer has unfailingly devoted her time to helping students to navigate the university, and to create and nurture spaces for students to flourish as people and in their academic career.