Andrea Diaz
Staff Writer
Elizabeth “Betsy” Brunner is an assistant professor here at ISU. Brunner was awarded the Women of Influence for Media and Communication award in 2019 to highlight her impressive career achievements . The award is to honor engaging women across East Idaho.
Brunner has a bachelor’s degree in English, a master of Fine Arts in Painting and Art History and a Master’s and Ph.D. in Communications, and does frequent research in Gender Studies. She is highly engaged with events and students here on campus, and is very involved in environmental research in China and domestically.
Because her main focus is on China, Brunner has traveled to China every year since 2011 to engage in research in Chinese national parks. The main places she travels to are the Yunnan and Sichuan provinces. With all these travels she is also moderately fluent in Mandarin.
Some of her studies include: how our phones affect our trip, how the environment is being impacted in China and what actions China is doing about the environment. Some of the conclusions she has discovered and from other research is that when we take pictures on our trip we often take less time to enjoy the thing we just took the picture of and that affects our travel experience as a whole.
While traveling through China, Brunner says that she feels very safe. She is not scared to walk alone at night or be alone in general, which she mentions is something that she does not feel here in the United States.
Another passion she studies and teaches is gender. She is a gender and communications professor that has put together many events that focus on gender and what that means when it comes to society. She brought Elizabeth Smart, an activist that was kidnapped from her Salt Lake City home when she was 14 years old, to talk about her experience, she also had someone from the F.B.I come and talk about the dangers of human trafficking and put together the “What were you wearing?” event where stories about sexual assault were presented with a depiction of the clothing items that the person was wearing at the time they were assaulted.
“We wanted to create a conversation,” said Brunner in regards to the “What were you wearing?” exhibit. Something that is important to her is for people to know that even if they were sexually assaulted they can talk about it and recover from it.
“Students are amazing at ISU, they are the biggest reason I do the extra stuff I do. I have seen students overcome some big challenges. ISU students have so much tenacity and resilience,” said Brunner.
The person that nominated her made a comment that she is passionate about helping students in any way she can.
Women’s month is a time to showcase and remember women that have made a difference in the world historically or currently, also the women in your daily life that make little differences every day. When it came to showcasing someone here at ISU, Brunner was an easy choice. Her activism, vast knowledge, and involvement on campus is not something everyone can do, but Brunner manages to do it all and still has time to teach.
