Beth Catlett is the Director of the Faculty Scholarship Support Center, the second to hold the position since the center was created. She received both her B.A. and M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, and has a doctorate in Family Relations and Human Development from The Ohio State University.
At DePaul she is also Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies, and the co-founder and Director of the Beck Research Initiative for Women, Gender, and Community (BRI). This initiative specializes in community-based research and programs involving gendered violence and social movements designed to create community change. Her areas of scholarly interest include youth leadership and activism, community-based participatory action research, violence in intimate relationships, the development of critical consciousness among college students, and the uses of contemplative practices to inspire social justice. Over the last decade, she has funded, developed, and directed multiple projects centered on these topics.
Three of these projects — Teen Girls Re-Vision East Rogers Park; Take Back the Halls: Ending Violence, Creating Change; and Research Training Internship — demonstrate key characteristics of her continuing pursuits. Each involves research and service directed toward both high school-aged and college students and each has offered youth opportunities to build knowledge and skills necessary to inspire positive social change in their lives, in their communities, and beyond.
Beth’s work has also generated numerous publications in scholarly journals, including Violence Against Women, Men and Masculinities, Violence and Victims, Family Relations, American Journal of Community Psychology, and Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning. She has contributed chapters to three books: Yoga, the Body, and Embodied Social Change: An Intersectional Feminist Analysis; Service-Learning to Advance Social Justice in a Time of Radical Inequality; and Men’s Lives. She and DePaul Professor and English Department Chair Michele Morano have co-edited Write Your Heart Out: Chicagoland Teens on Relationships: An Interactive Anthology.