We are thrilled to announce that Merzamie (Mimi) Cagaitan, has been awarded the 2013 Dean’s Medal in the Humanities Division. Mimi is a joint Comparative History of Ideas (Honors)/ English (Honors) major with an outstanding academic record, with minors in Diversity Studies and Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies. She has been chosen as a McNair & Presidential Scholar due to her exceptional academic record and her personal dedication to excellence on every level.
For CHID, Mimi has been an integral and outstanding undergraduate, opening learning opportunities for other students in the wake of her passionate commitment to furthering her research into human trafficking and gender and sexuality studies. Mimi continued her research through service learning with CHID by designing her own summer 2012 internship with Seattle Against Slavery, as well as creating a student organization, Seattle Against Slavery UW. To list Mimi’s honors, awards, publications, presentations, conferences, exhibitions, research, teaching, mentoring and community service history would take three full pages. Instead we shall simply touch on a few highlights.
Mimi designed and twice taught the CHID Focus Group course, “Behind the Veils of Industry: Mail-Order Brides,” examining the political economy of sex and intimacy related to women’s migratory experiences. She distinguished herself with outstanding student evaluations --this course is a gem in the CHID Focus Group curriculum.
Mimi aspires to be a professor, and currently performs multiple roles in teaching as a Focus Group Peer Instructor, a Tutor/Mentor for the Dream Project, as a Freshman Interest Group peer instructor, and throughout 2012 as a Teaching Intern, providing classroom support to the teachers of detained immigrant minors at YouthCare Casa de los Amigos. Mimi was recently accepted into Claremont Graduate University, awarded the Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship Program in South Korea, as well as accepted into our own MA/PhD program in English.
Please join CHID in recognizing the exceptional talent and dedication to service and scholarship exemplified by Mimi !