UFV alumna Bonnie Reilly Schmidt will launch her new book on women’s experience in the RCMP on Nov 17 at 4 pm in the rotunda outside of the Abbotsford library.
Silenced: The Untold Story of the Fight for Equality in the RCMP, offers a comprehensive history of women in the RCMP from 1873 until today. Not only does Reilly Schmidt write with the authority of an award-winning history scholar, but she brings a decade of personal experience as a plainclothes officer (she worked as a police officer with the RCMP from 1977-1987), and speaks on this subject with passion and intelligence.
In 1974, thirty-two women were hired as mounted police officers. Since that time, some of the challenges women encountered upon entering the RCMP have been revealed.
Bonnie Reilly Schmidt is a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada scholar and the recipient of the prestigious SFU Dean of Graduate Studies Convocation Medal for Academic Excellence. She was a consultant and contributor to “First Ladies of the RCMP: The History of Women in the Force,” which aired on The Current with Anna Maria Tremonti on CBC Radio One. She has presented at numerous academic conferences, and has provided expert insights into this subject in interviews with the National Post, the Canadian Press, Macleans, the Vancouver Sun, and many other newspapers and radio programs.
She will do a reading from her book, and will be available to sign copies. Light refreshments will be served.
Reilly Schmidt completed her Bachelor of Arts at UFV in 2004. Since that time she has gone on to earn a Master of Arts and a PhD in History from SFU, and this fall, publishes her first book.
For more information contact Kim Isaac: kim.isaac@ufv.ca.