Our third annual ‘Immigrant Women of Inspiration’ picks five brilliant ladies from the academic world
KnowledgeSEEKERS By Lisa Evans, Margaret Jetelina and Baisakhi Roy In recognition of International Women’s Day, March 8, Canadian Immigrant presents our third annual “Immigrant Women of Inspiration” special — for 2016, we chose the theme of immigrant women in academia. More than just professors, we picked five women from across the country who are pushing boundaries in education, and in their passionate pursuit of knowledge, ideas and change. These brilliant PhDs have different areas of study, but they all have inspirational stories and much wisdom to share: Ananya Mukerjee-Reed, Shalina Ousman, Parin Dossa, Leonie Sandercock and Purnima Tyagi.
Ananya Mukerjee-Reed Dean in pursuit of justice
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here aren’t too many immigrant women heading up university faculties in Canada, so it’s a notable achievement for Indianborn Ananya Mukerjee-Reed, who was appointed dean of Toronto-based York University’s faculty of liberal arts and professional studies last summer. Mukerjee-Reed holds a bachelor of arts and master of arts in economics from Jadavpur University in Kolkata and a PhD in political economy and public policy from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. She joined York University’s department of political science in 1995 as an assistant professor and later served as the department’s chair from 2011 to 2014. Academia, you could say, is in her blood. Back home in Kolkata, her mother was also an academic and her grandfather, who retired from a senior position with the Indian government, built a school in
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a rural village, instilling in Mukerjee-Reed the importance of education for everyone. “Kolkata is very well known for its academics. It’s a very culturally, politically and intellectually active city,” says Mukerjee-Reed. Growing up surrounded by the traditions of theatre, poetry and literature, Mukerjee-Reed was constantly engaged with political issues. “We were always taught to ask questions, not take anything at face value,” she says. Serving others was also part of Mukerjee-Reed’s education. “My parents drilled into me that we were not only here to have a career and be successful, but to do something that served others,” she says. “I went to an all-girls’ school, what we would probably now call a feminist school, but the message that we got is that we must develop an identity of our own. They very much encouraged us to have an identity, a sense of who we are, a great self-awareness so we could always have our feet firmly on the ground. And so no one can bully you into something you don’t want to do,” she says. That strong sense of identity helped Mukerjee-Reed overcome the many challenges of being an immigrant in a new country where one’s identity is constantly being thrown into question. “I remained who I was in Kolkata, and that’s helped me through my journey,” she says. Her strong feminist background also later shaped her studies in facebook.com/canimmigrant
