Program Director and Faculty Spotlight: Claire Williams, PhD

by Written by Jeremy Field | September 3, 2020

 

After earning her undergraduate degree, Professor Williams moved to New York to intern with the Women's Sports Foundation, a non-profit organization that advocates for women and girls in sport. She then moved to Boston to teach Physical Education to middle school students for a year. As a life-long athlete, and due to her growing interest in the academic study of women in sport, she decided to pursue a master’s degree and then a doctoral degree in Sport Humanities at The Ohio State University. Her coursework included classes in sport sociology, sport history, sport management, and women’s studies. During her time at Ohio State, she worked as a graduate teaching assistant developing her passion for teaching at the college-level and developing her interest in a career in academia.

Looking to move back to the West Coast and teach at a smaller institution, Professor Williams came to Saint Mary's College in 2010. Over her 10 years at Saint Mary’s, she has had the opportunity to teach a wide variety of classes at the undergraduate-level (e.g., ranging from Sports Marketing to Sport & Sexuality) and at the graduate-level she has taught Supervision & Legal Aspects of Sport as well as the annual colloquium on such topics as Title IX, sport and racial justice, and concussions and mental health. From 2016-2019, Professor Williams was the Chair of the Department of Kinesiology and has held leadership positions in the Graduate Kinesiology Program on and off since 2016. She presently serves as the Director of the program.

Professor Williams’ research has centered on the experiences of women and girls in sport, including the impact of discrimination and harassment on these experiences. Her latest research has expanded to include historical research on two different road races held annually in San Francisco, the Bay to Breakers and the Pride Run. Published in 2017, her research on the Bay to Breakers can be found in San Francisco Bay Area Sports: Golden Gate Athletics, Recreation, and Community. While on sabbatical in Spring 2020, she started archival research at the GLBT Historical Society on the Pride Run, a road race organized for and by the LGBTQIA+ community. COVID-19 disrupted her research but she plans to return to the project as soon as is allowable given public health restrictions and closures. She relates that “research contributes to my efficacy as a teacher and provides me an opportunity to fill existing gaps in research related to the sports industry.”

The breadth and diversity of Professor Williams’ experiences and interests reflect the modern face of Kinesiology. As she states about Saint Mary’s Graduate Kinesiology Program, “Although Kinesiology is generally assumed to relate exclusively to topics aligned with exercise science, Kinesiology is an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary field that includes sport management, among other areas. Our program is an ideal example of the diversity this field offers as students take courses in a variety of subjects, like sport philosophy and sport psychology, while also taking elective courses in more concentrated areas like sport management or human movement.”