Finding Her Place: Rose Owen's First Year at Purchase
- 12 hours ago
- 5 min read
By Francisca Schmalz
When Rose Owen ended her post-doctoral fellowship at The New School, she was having difficulty finding her next job. Months of applications and nothing was landing for her. Then, an old colleague and friend reached out with the opportunity to join the Purchase community as a visiting assistant professor for the political science department.
Owen came to the school at the start of the 2025-2026 academic year and has taught Introduction to U.S. Politics, Women and Politics, Race, Gender and the Law, as well as Sex, Politics and Health. She has also been running the senior seminar for the political science department.
Owen’s job at The New School brought her to New York, but she is originally from Portland, Oregon. Her undergraduate education brought her to the East Coast; she studied political science with a specialization in feminist theory at Wellesley College.
“I took a feminist political thought class in my second year (at Wellesley) that made me seriously think about becoming an academic. I was a feminist for a long time before that, based on that my mom was a feminist. As well as combined with some personal experiences when I was younger, and a general political disposition towards the world. I think feminist theory became more of an academic interest in my sophomore year.” Owen continued her specialization in feminist theory into her graduate and doctoral education at the University of Chicago.
Prior to coming to Purchase, Owen wrote a book project titled “Feminist Violence,” exploring how feminists have redefined the concept of violence in the mid-20th century. In her project, Owen explores the idea of violence against the male sex, turning into a form of resistance for women.
“I have always been interested in figurations of women exercising violence as a form of resistance. Once I began interrogating that interest, it became a way of investigating patriarchal violence like sexual violence, and domestic violence, then using that resistance as a lens to think through many of those [sexual and domestic] problems we see in society.”
Owen started the project in school right after the # MeToo movement and said, “It was a moment where a lot of my friends in college were starting to recognize we had different experiences of sexual assault and didn’t know how to articulate them as such until the # MeToo movement. The question that was prompted by me was, 'Why don’t we see sexual violence as violence?' That was the framing problem for the project. As I’ve progressed, the reason I’ve turned to feminist violence is that I think in this moment of resistance and self-defense, women can come to see that sexual violence is a form of violence.”
Being new to a campus, whether as a student or faculty, can be scary. Owen, however, noted how welcoming the Purchase community has been to her this year.
“I was actually a little surprised after being in colder academic spaces,” she said. “I didn’t expect such a warm welcome. Even though I’m a visiting faculty member, there has been a lot of effort to be communicative from the administration [to provide] as many professional opportunities as they can.”
Sam Galloway, the head of the political science department, was Owen’s friend and an old colleague prior to her time here. Galloway had known Owen from their time in graduate school and got to know her further when she moved to New York for her position at The New School.
“Rose and I are both graduates of the political science program at UChicago, where we got our doctorates. Her partner, Larry, was in my preceptor cohort, and so I got to know Larry, and then I got to know Rose through Larry. We just hit it off.” Owen and Galloway reconnected after her move to New York, meeting up at a seminar series at the Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought. “We’d meet up at these 13/13 events, and it was through there that Rose started to come up on my radar as someone I could conceivably hire.”
Despite her short time at Purchase, Owen has cultivated strong relationships with her students regardless of major. Grace Scholler, a double-major junior in gender studies and sociology, had this to say about her relationship with Owen, “I really like Owen as a professor. She’s been helping me look into graduate schools and has actually been rooting for me to go to UChicago because she has connections there and wants to help me out. If I don’t go down that route, she’s also been advocating for me to go into the city, so I can push myself out of my comfort zone.”
Michael Madera, a freshman political science and creative writing double major, took Owen’s Introduction to U.S. Politics course in the fall 2025 semester. At the time, both Owen and Madera were new to SUNY Purchase.
“For me, I took two years off after graduating high school, so Intro to U.S. was a nice refresher of these basic concepts. It was a lot of ‘Oh, I remember this, oh yes, I knew that beforehand,’ for me. Because I knew a lot of these things coming into the class, the way Owen taught it was really beneficial. It was my first lecture-based course, and for my first semester of my freshman year, it was a great introduction into the college world.”
Chloe Alten, a sophomore political science major, has taken a class with Owen each semester this academic year. She said, “I think I’ve definitely seen her teaching methods evolve since the first and second semester. I went from taking Introduction to U.S. Politics to Women and Politics, which is her focus, and I’ve really enjoyed seeing her come into her element. You can tell she has done the research for that course and that she cares. I also think she’s been more open and talkative in Women and Politics, because that’s her specialty.”
Outside of academia, Owen finds herself at the gym, spending time with her cats and her friends, and watching arthouse and horror films. Some of her recently listened to music includes Slayyyter’s new album “Wor$t Girl in America,” however, one of her favorite artists is Purchase College alumna Mitski. “Just to be a little hipster millennial, I loved Mitski since before she blew up on TikTok. I saw her at this tiny indie venue back when I lived in Chicago, where there were only a couple hundred people in the audience, and she’s an amazing performer.”
Some of her favorite movies include “Call Me by Your Name” and “Kiki’s Delivery Service.” Both of which she attributed to being very comforting. She also enjoys horror as an entire genre, recently focusing on watching new French extremity films such as “Titane.” As for television shows, she mentioned “Girls” and “Broad City.” “Moving back to the city had me rewatching both those shows. They both are pretty big guilty pleasures of mine.”
Owen’s impact extends past Purchase. She’s recently won the Okin-Young Award and was recognized for the best article in Feminist Political Theory from the American Political Science Association. While her academic work displays her contributions to the field, students say her mentorship and support have made a lasting impression.
“When I see a project, or research, or read something I really like, sometimes I feel like I can breathe again. I don’t think I’ve done that yet, but as I’m slowly climbing the ranks of faculty, I hope to make space in academia to talk about feminism and patriarchy. I think it’s a problem that prevents women from participating in politics and silences them. I think it’s important to not only name that problem but also provide some imagination of the end.”
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