Dr. Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
Professor
Office
RC Rachel Cooper 303
Office Hours
Flexible.
Office Phone
Email
- About
- Education
- Awards & Honors
- Selected Research
Biography
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady is a Professor of Social Work, and affiliated faculty in the Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program. She has an expertise in Intersectionality and community engagement, women and poverty, social movement work, ecotherapy methods, and the connection between nature and improved mental health.
Current Courses
SWK 456.001 Child and Family Policy
SWK 418.001 Generalist Social Work Practice II: Families And Groups
SWK 419.001 Generalist Social Work Practice III: Organizations and Communities
Teaching Interests & Areas
Diverse Populations, Community Practice, Practice with Families and Groups, and Advanced Child and Family Policy. All courses include a community engagement component.
Research Interests & Areas
Nature-based ecotherapy practices (including working with the land, plants, and animals using agroecological approaches) strengthening the human/more-than-human bond for improved mental health and environmental outcomes, the community engagement of young low-income mothers, the uses of maternalism in the history of poor women’s social movements, and intersectionality in poor women’s access to reproductive rights during the Jim Crow era.
Research methods include qualitative methods such as: arts-based methods (photo-voice, poetic inquiry, autoethnography), focused ethnography, participatory qualitative mapping/spatial analysis, oral history, and archival methods.
Dr. Edmonds-Cady has presented and published papers on improved mental health and healing through nature, feminist standpoint theory, the history of the Welfare Rights Movement, race/class and women’s reproductive control in the 1940s-1950s American South, and the use of feminist research methods.
Ph D Social Work
Michigan State University
East Lansing
MSW Social Work
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor
BS Social Work
Eastern Michigan University
Ypsilanti
University Outstanding Teaching Initiative Award
Illinois State University
2012
Grants and Contracts
Exploring the Potential of an Embodied Nature Practice for Increased Well-Being
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
Illinois State University CAS URG. August 2024 - August 2025
Re-Integration of Mixed-Power Systems in Agroecological Intensification
Ruth Burke, Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
U.S. Department of Agriculture SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Projects). 2024 - 2025
SoTL Civic Engagement Small Grant Program
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
Illinois State University Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology. August 2011 - May 2012
Illinois State University, Pre-tenure Faculty Initiative Grant (PFIG)
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
Illinois State University. August 2010 - August 2011
Illinois State University, New Faculty Initiative Grant (NFIG)
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
Illinois State University. June 2008 - June 2009
Center for Teaching, Learning, & Technology
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
Illinois State University, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Workshop seed money. 2007 - 2007
Active Voices of Youth (AVOY) Student Advocacy Center (SAC) of Michigan
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
W.K. Kellogg Foundation. 2001 - 2002
State of Michigan, Children’s Trust Fund Initiative
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
State of Michigan. 2000 - 2001
Book Review
Review of the book Shared prosperity in America’s communities, by S.M. Wachter & L. Ding
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
(2016), 43, 165-68, The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare
Book, Authored
Piling Rocks on the Dead
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
(2023), Bottlecap Press
Presentations
Using an Embodied Nature Practice with College Students for Improving Mental Health and the Health of our Planet
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
The Stewardship Network Annual Conference, E. Lansing Michigan, November, 2025
When Human Connection Becomes Dangerous: Creating an Embodied Nature Practice for the Age of Covid.
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
Nineteenth annual International Congress for Qualitative Inquiry (ICQI), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign., May, 2023
Making our way Outside: Toward an Embodied Nature Practice
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana, April, 2023
Women in the Wild: Writing Evocative Autoethnographies on Trauma, Nature, and Healing
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
International Congress for Qualitative Inquiry (ICQI), Champaign, Illinois, May, 2019
Through the Looking Glass: Teaching Macro Practice Skills Through Immersive, Community-Engaged Learning
Marya Sosulski, Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
CSWE Annual Program Meeting, Orlando, FL, October, 2018
Anti-Poverty Warriors: Lessons from the Welfare Rights Movement
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
ISU's Office of Diversity Advocacy Lunch and Learn series, Normal, IL, April, 2017
From Behind the Walls of the Ivory Tower to the Streets: Knowledge Construction and Positionality in Social Justice Work
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady, Tuwana Wingfield, LCSW
Race, Gender, & Class (RGC) conference, University of New Orleans Department of Sociology, New Orleans, Louisiana., March 31, 2016
Overcoming stereotyping and prejudice: Is it possible?
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady, Christopher Gjesfjeld
International Studies Seminar Series, Illinois State University, September, 2015
Socially Constructing Single-Mother Communities by Mapping the Intersection of Gender, Class, Race, and Space
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
Eleventh Annual International Congress for Qualitative Inquiry (ICQI), The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, May, 2015
Defining Community at the Intersection of Motherhood, Race, and Space: Low-Income Women’s Civic Engagement
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
Ninth Annual International Congress for Qualitative Inquiry (ICQI), Online, May, 2013
(Re) defining Civic Engagement: Understanding Community through Women’s Work and Women’s Bodies
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
Eighth Annual International Congress for Qualitative Inquiry (ICQI), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, May, 2012
Motherhood Revisited: Maternalism in the Next Generation
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Amherst, MA, June, 2011
Defining Welfare, Work, and Motherhood: Women's Participation in the Welfare Rights Movement in Detroit, 1964-1972
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
Our Daily Work/Our Daily Lives series, E. Lansing, Michigan, March, 2011
Using Historical Research to Examine the Shaping of Family Planning Services through the Lens of Race, Class, and Gender
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
Annual conference of the Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR), Tampa, FL, January, 2011
Oppression and Agency: Detroit Welfare Rights Activists’ Resistance to State Control over Sexuality and Reproduction during the War on Poverty
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
Annual conference of the Social Science History Association (SSHA), Chicago, IL, November, 2010
Blurring the Outsider/Insider Divide: Race, Class, and Gender in the Welfare Rights Movement
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
Annual National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) conference, Denver, CO, November, 2010
Mobilizing Motherhood in the Welfare Rights Movement
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
Motherhood Symposium, New York, NY, March, 2010
Race, Class, and the Rights to Motherhood in the Southern United States 1939-1950
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
Annual conference of the Social Science History Association (SSHA), San Diego, CA, November, 2009
Situating Privilege and Oppression in the Classroom: Emotional Resistance, Acceptance, and Action
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
Annual Program Meeting of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), San Antonio, TX, November, 2009
Welfare Policy in Illinois for a panel on Financial Literacy
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
ISU College of Education’s co-sponsored Financial Literacy Awareness Week, Normal, IL, May, 2009
Complicating Gender: Using an Intersectional Analysis to Examine Women’s Participation in the Welfare Rights Movement
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
Annual conference of the Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR), New Orleans, LA, January, 2009
Why is Cultural Competence Important? Understanding Historical and Political Groundings of Inequality in the U.S.
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
ISU Diversity Advocacy Office summer training and orientation program, Normal, IL, July 17, 2008
Boundaries Maintained Boundaries Crossed: Lessons from the Welfare Rights Movement
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Symposium, Ypsilanti, MI, January, 2008
Getting to the grassroots: Feminist standpoints within the welfare rights movement
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
Annual Program Meeting of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), San Francisco, CA, October, 2007
Boundaries of sisterhood: Race, class, and gender in Michigan’s welfare rights movement
Cynthia Edmonds-Cady
Annual Program Meeting of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), Chicago, IL, February, 2006