UNT Dean of Students Profile

Maureen McGuinness always knew she wanted to help people. Growing up in a large Catholic family, her parents instilled a sense of compassion and kindness in her. As the Dean of Students at UNT, she extends that selflessness to her students every single day.

When she was a little girl, McGuinness wanted to be a pediatrician. After she arrived at college her freshman year, she realized medicine was not her calling. As a student worker on campus, she found her true passion.

“When I went to John Carroll University, I was a work-study student in the Dean of Students office,” McGuinness said. “I fell in love with a career I didn’t even know existed.”

After earning her bachelor’s degree, McGuinness moved to Texas and became a hall director at the University of Texas at Arlington. Meanwhile, she was earning her master’s degree at UNT.

“I was driving from Arlington to here working on my master’s,” she said. “I fell in love with UNT and that’s how I got here.”

McGuinness is passionate about students. She is a mother, an educator and a resource to thousands of young people. She works every day to make sure her students know about all of the resources and help available to them.

“When they [students] find out we’re here and what we can offer them and the connections and the resources we can give them, [that’s what I love about my job],” McGuinness said. “I love seeing how one, that makes them stay in school and two, the healing process that takes place.”

Family is a fundamental part of life for McGuinness. She grew up as one of seven siblings and some of her happiest memories were the days she spent with her family in Erie, Pennsylvania. Though she lives hundreds of miles from where she grew up, McGuinness still values her family.

“I’m real big on just hanging with my kids and my family and friends,” McGuinness said. “I’ve made a lot of good friends in Texas that have become my family because everyone else is up in Erie. When you’re one of seven you need to find an adopted family quickly, and I’ve found that here.”

McGuinness credits her love for helping others to her parents. Her father was a teacher for 40 years and her mother went back to college to become a hospice nurse. As an educator and student leader, she dedicates every day to serving those around her, just like her parents did.

“I have two mottoes – one: students are not an interruption to our work, they are the purpose of it – that’s my tagline. And two would be, you always do the right thing and you do it with kindness and compassion.”

TCU professor Rima Abunasser speaks at UNT about gender and the Syrian Refugee Crisis

The recent tragedy in Paris has sparked a national conversation about the status of refugees, notably those fleeing Syria. There seem to be two sides to the issue: letting refugees into the country and concern over a threat to national security.

Dr. Rima Abunasser, a professor at TCU, spoke at UNT Wednesday night about the Syrian Refugee Crisis and how gender issues affect refugees fleeing Syria.  

Abunasser holds a Ph.D. in English literature and theory and teaches courses on contemporary Arabic literature, British literature and transnational women’s writing.

“Gender erasure is a hallmark of the aid community and is symptomatic of a larger global problem,” Abunasser said. “We often take a hierarchical approach to refugees.”

The talk was hosted by the UNT Women’s and Gender Studies Program and the UNT Contemporary Arab+Muslim Cultural Studies Institute and was held in the Environmental Science Building.

Abunasser’s talk focused on the issues that women and their children face when fleeing Syria and the conditions of refugee camps in countries like Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon.

Abunasser discussed internally displaced refugees who often seek placement back into Syria but must settle for life in refugee camps. She stressed that permanent solutions are needed for refugees rather than programs of short-term placement.

UNT Women’s and Gender Studies Program Director Sandra Spencer introduced Abunasser to the audience. Spencer has a personal relationship with Abunasser and shares her interest in the refugee crisis.

“I’ve always been interested in the Middle East, and Rima lived in Jordan as a child, so we’ve had many good talks about it,” Spencer said. “I felt like it was good for my students and anybody else to hear somebody that’s really devoted her life to understanding this region and the ramifications of what’s going on.”

Abunasser discussed the tendency of the media to portray Arab women, specifically Syrian women refugees, as victims of their circumstances rather than women attempting to make a better life for their children.

“There seems to be a narrow focus on Syrian women as victims,” Abunasser said. “By reducing women to this image, what we’ve said is that Syrian refugee women are a group of powerless, victimized women who sell their daughters as commodities for rich Arab men. This idea of orientalism is a really old stereotype and it needs to stop.”

Abunasser also touched on the conditions that women face in refugee camps. The rights of refugees are reduced down to the basic rights of life – food and shelter. Refugees are given no legal status and are outside of the scope of the law.

Women refugees are often subjected to sexual violence and sometimes exchange sexual favors for goods or safe passage. Women are afraid to report assault and many times cannot access the resources they need. 

“A lot of the time, women refugees don’t have access to non-food sources like maternity care, family planning and hygiene kits,” Abunasser said. “The only place women can get these resources is in distribution centers in refugee camps, and these are the second most dangerous locations within the camps [due to assault and sexual violence].”

 Abunasser conducted a question and answer session after her talk. Many people asked questions about the status of women refugees in light of the recent discourse in the United States as well as the state of ISIS amid rampant Islamophobia. 

“When you learn about this issue it becomes more of a real problem,” Yacine Ndi said. “You hear about it in the news and it seems far away, but hearing about the actual problem makes me think ‘What can I do to help?’”

Abunasser closed her talk with a call to action for the global aid community as well as a note of encouragement.

“We need to see a shift from emergency response to programs of resilience,” Abunasser said. “Instead of thinking about what women and girls need, it’s important to consider empowerment and possibilities.”