WHERE clause confusion

I'm doing something that is normally, using straight SQL, fairly simple to do.

I've got a table that has a column called 'department'

I'm trying to capture the department name via the URL using a $_GET variable.

So here's the SQL at the top of my page:

$dept = $_GET['dept'];
list($blogRecords, $blogMetaData) = getRecords(array(
'tableName' => 'blog',
'allowSearch' => '0',
'where' => 'department = "$dept"',
'orderBy' => 'date DESC'
));

It doesn't work.

YET, if I hard code the variable like so, it works and lists the blog posts within the department: Hair

list($blogRecords, $blogMetaData) = getRecords(array(
'tableName' => 'blog',
'allowSearch' => '0',
'where' => 'department = \'Hair\'',
'orderBy' => 'date DESC'
));

Here's the URL: http://www.someURL.com/blog.php?dept=Hair

I've tried various ways to code the WHERE clause, such as:

'where' => 'department = ' . $dept,
returns: MySQL Error: Unknown column 'Hair' in 'where clause'

'where' => 'department = {$dept}',
return: MySQL Error: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '}) ORDER BY date DESC' at line 3

'where' => 'department = \'"{$dept}"\'',
returns: No blog posts were found

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks much.

Jim