Emma Peyton Williams

Emma Peyton Williams

Bachelor of Arts

Comparative American Studies, Highest Honors

Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies

Identity and Diversity

The most meaningful parts of my time at Oberlin were spent with the Oberlin community; I was honored to serve as the College Advisor to the Oberlin High School Queers and Allies Club for my sophomore through senior years, and as a Sex Education Intern with the OWL program at the Oberlin Unitarian Universalist Fellowship my junior year. These were spaces where I was grateful to apply the concepts I was learning from my classes in the CAS and GSFS departments to support and hopefully grow the community that so generously welcomed me during my time here. Outside of classes, I spent time organizing with my peers and hanging out with friends. All that I learned from the student activists around me and the alumni who gave so much to this place was invaluable; they shaped how I operate in and out of Oberlin and I am forever indebted to them. The friends that I shared any part of my four years with helped me come to define myself, taught me how to love, and be loved like no one else. I could not be more appreciative of these people, of whom there are far too many to name.

I studied in Chicago, IL in spring of 2019.

Research Assistant

Libraries Student Staff

Any bench in Tappan, because Oberlin has some of the best people-watching.

Visiting professor Chris Barcelos's "GSFS 316: Queering Sex Ed," taught spring of 2017. Chris's class challenged me to rethink everything I knew about what teaching and education can and should look like, which was an exciting start to my time at Oberlin.

HIV Peer Testing

Oberlin Student Cooperative Association

Student Labor Action Coalition

A recent advertising letter from the college reads, Oberlin is the right place for you... if you think complacency is not an option. When it comes to the livelihoods of dining and custodial workers, we refuse to look the other way. Oberlin Class of 2024, in a May 2020 open letter to President Ambar expressing the class's support of the 108 United Auto Workers who continue to fight to maintain their employment at Oberlin College.

The first meeting of CAS 501: the Comparative American Studies honors seminar in September of 2019. We met in StudiOC. Rachel Marcus wrote "what is a ''''project?'''" on the whiteboard, as we all laughed at the absurdity of the workloads we had just signed ourselves up for and the seeming impossibility of the year we were about to embark on. Establishing the playful and light dynamic that would carry me through the end of my time at Oberlin was such a surprising and joyful moment. It is an even fonder memory when considered in hindsight, looking back at everything we were able to accomplish together.

05/25/2020

Moving in with family until I can hopefully finding a job in Chicago, IL.