We have several exciting developments to share regarding both current and new OPEEP staff members:
First, we would like to congratulate OPEEP Program Coordinator Babette Cieskowkski for being named a finalist for this poetry book award from Trio House Press! For those of you who do not know, Babette earned her MFA in Poetry from The Ohio State University in 2018, and was awarded an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award in 2020. Her poems have appeared in Compose, the minnesota review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Zone 3, Frontier Poetry, Crab Orchard Review, Prairie Schooner, Juked, The Laurel Review, among others. She is the author of the poetry chapbook Secrets My Body Keeps (dancing girl press, 2022). Congratulations, Babette! We deeply value your unique perspective and insight as a poet, and your writing is an inspiration to us all!
OPEEP is also happy to announce the addition of three new staff members to our team in recent months: Dominique Gedanke Flacksberg, Hannah Moore, and Zoe Van Gyseghem! Dominique came on board as a Graduate Research Asssistant (GRA) with funds from our Mellon Grant and a Student Academic Success Research (SARS) Grant. She is a Design graduate student and assists OPEEP by producing digital media and informatics for dissemination to public and campus audiences. Hannah and Zoe have also joined our team as Graduate and Undergraduate Research Assistants, respectively, with funds for their positions coming from our Mellon Grant. Hannah and Zoe assist with various research tasks and LAM Collective activities.
Read below to hear more from Dominique and Zoe about what brings them to this work:
Dominique Gedanke Flacksberg (OPEEP Graduate Research Assistant/Graduate Associate Designer)
Dominique is an Earth Centered designer working within the realms of education, design strategy and intuitive entrepreneurship. She completed her undergraduate studies at The New School, with a BFA at Parsons School for Design and a BA in Liberal Arts, with a minor in Environmental Studies at Eugene Lang College. She is currently pursuing an MFA at the Ohio State University Design Department, focusing on decolonizing design thinking through the integration of Indigenous and Earth centered wisdom. At OPEEP, she works behind design and communications, helping bring the work that OPEEP does to a community of students and teachers inside and outside of the OSU campus.
In her research and practice, Dominique works to bridge two worlds: formal, institutionalized knowledge that dictates our current systems of living and intuitive, ancestral action/wisdom which invites us to restore an authentic connection to our environment. Nature, tradition, spirituality and education are pillars to her research, which weaves different realities into coexistence. She centers design thinking as a lens to understand, dream and reshape the different futures we can collaboratively build upon this Earth.
Her previous and current work include designing and consulting for sustainability within the fashion industry, teaching design at different educational settings, facilitating ancestral soap making skills workshops, and starting a wellness company, Circular Bodies, which offers accessible and healthy home and body wellness, while utilizing circular design and production practices.
Zoe Van Gyseghem (OPEEP Undergraduate Research Assistant)
Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your background?
I'm originally from Belgium, but most recently from Northern California. My academic and professional background are a bit broad: I've studied photography in Michigan right out of high school, then moved to Newark, NJ to train in dance schools in New York City. I also studied dance and choreography at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle before settling in California for the past eight years, where I worked as a health coach and yoga instructor. I credit these experiences with giving me a broad overview of society's socioeconomic, racialized and gendered divisions and disparities. I currently am double-majoring in African American and African Studies, as well as Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, with a minor in Comparative Studies. In addition to working on this project I also work for a nonprofit that employs forcibly displaced people from around the world, to work as language tutors for university students.
How did you first hear about OPEEP, and what sparked your interest in getting involved with the project?
A professor in AAAS told me about this opportunity and I jumped at the chance to apply. I'm inspired by scholars and activists who critically engage with the carceral system and its impacts on people's lives and life chances. I am personally critical of punitive responses to situations that could be otherwise addressed through community-based systems of care.
What are you most looking forward to in your new position as Undergraduate Research Assistant with OPEEP?
Policies and laws are often seen as 'natural' and absolute. However, these overlapping systems of surveillance, policing, and punishment historically have been used to target specific groups of people. I'm looking forward to working with people who are passionate about bringing these realities to light- both within academia and within the incarcerated population. This feels like a rare opportunity to, as an undergrad, be able to bridge theory and praxis in such a tangible way.
Congratulations on receiving the Mildred Mundy Scholarship through the Department of Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies! Can you tell us a bit more about the application process and/or what the scholarship means to you (academically/professionally or personally)?
Thank you! It is such an honor to be the recipient of this scholarship- I'm super grateful to the department and to my professors. The application process was straightforward, and centered around a personal statement of intent, as well as a letter of recommendation. Within the personal statement students are asked to write about their academic and career goals, and how they intend to use their WGSS education. I'm passionate about human rights, not just from a legal standpoint, but from the perspective of lived experience. I know that it is possible to create a better world than the current iteration- one in which we have systems of care and community support, with livable conditions wherein people can thrive. I am inspired by the professors and students of the WGSS, AAAS and Comp Studies departments, and draw daily from their wisdom and guidance. Receiving this scholarship felt like an induction into the community.
