Dr. Frances (Frankie) Cachon is a Learning Specialist in Women’s and Gender Studies. She serves as the Acting Coordinator of the University of Windsor’s Bystander Initiative, a campus-wide sexual violence prevention program. Frankie holds a PhD in Sociology with a specialization in Social Justice. Her research interests include the bystander approach as a means of engaging post-secondary communities in the prevention of sexual violence, feminist pedagogies, and youth-led social change.
Teaching Philosophy
As a feminist sociologist, Dr. Cachon understands sexual violence as an issue of gender justice. Frankie sees post-secondary education as a vehicle for transformative social change. She designs and facilitates her courses by positioning teaching/learning in service of social justice.
Classes Regularly Taught
WGST-3500: Practical Strategies for Social Change
WGST-4500: Practicum in Social Change
Please Note: Both Bystander Courses (3500 and 4500) are also offered for credit in General Social Science, Psychology, Social Work, Sociology/Criminology, and Women's and Gender Studies.
Opportunities for Students to Work with Dr. Cachon
Undergraduate/Graduate Students:
Dr. Cachon is passionate about working with students in Experiential Learning (EL) environments—whereby students become empowered/activated to take personal and social responsibility for the prevention of sexual violence.
Bystander Courses offer unique and highly specialized EL opportunities—focused on developing leadership skills, team building, public speaking, knowledge dissemination, giving and receiving constructive feedback, and building students’ capacity to become violence prevention educators. Interested undergraduate students are encouraged to apply to participate in Bystander Courses.
Dr. Cachon welcomes the opportunity to work with graduate students from various disciplines in areas related to gender and social justice. Frankie served as the External Examiner for Anne Rudzinski’s Master of Arts Degree, Community Psychology Bridging the Gaps in Bringing in the Bystander®: An Intersectional Approach to Campus-Based Sexual Violence Prevention (2018). Supervisor Dr. Robb Travers (Associate Professor) Wilfrid Laurier University. She is currently supervising Salsabel Almanssori, a PhD student in the Faculty of Education at the University of Windsor.
Abbreviated CV
Select Publications:
(With Evelina Baczewska) The Fight for $15 & Fairness: Exploring Youth Leadership for Economic Justice. 2019. Tikkun Beyond Borders: Connecting Youth Voices, Leading Change.
(With Evelina Baczewska, Yvette Daniel and Erwin Selimos) Mapping the Terrain of Strategic Politics Amoung Social-Change Oriented Youth. 20018. Journal of Youth Studies. Taylor & Francis.
Unsettling the Mind/Body Dualism: Embodied Learning, Tikkun Olam, & Progressive Citizenship Education 2015. Citizenship Education Research Journal (CERJ) Faculty of Education University of British Columbia Okanagan.
Grants and Awards:
Co-Investigator, SSHRC and University of Windsor funded Partnership Development Grant (2014). Pedagogies of Repair and Reconciliation (Tikkun): The Embodied Praxis of Youth Civic Engagement. A three-year, international project with five research sites, including Windsor ON – explores the factors that encourage youth, aged 16-25, to become drivers of social change in their own communities.
University of Windsor Student Alliance (UWSA), Teaching Excellence Award (2015).