POLICIES RE: CROSSLISTING COURSES WITH WOMEN'S STUDIES
What follows are a query that appeared on WMST-L in March 1992
about criteria for crosslisting courses with Women's Studies, and seven
responses offered to that query and to a later call for crosslisting
policies. If you wish to add to this file, please send your crosslisting
policy via e-mail to KORENMAN@UMBC (Bitnet) or KORENMAN@UMBC2.UMBC.EDU
(Internet).
*******************************************************
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1992 09:21:32 EDT
From: PHILDON@MOREKYPR.BITNET
Subject: We are new at this!
I am an assistant professor of sociology at Morehead State University
in eastern Kentucky. Currently, MSU faculty and staff (or a small group
of them) are designing a minor program in Women's Studies. It is our first
attempt at constructing a program outside the mainstream. We are
experienceing some concern about how to decide which courses will be
crosslisted in the Women's Studies program.
Some members of the committee advocate including any course which
currently has "woman" in the title. Others are more concerned about
content and want to decided whether a course will be included on the
basis of the instructor submitting a syllabus and course outline for
committee approval. There is also some concern about alienating those
faculty whose courses are *not* included. ("I don't want to be in
the business of excluding")
There has to be a solution with which we will all be comfortable.
How have other institutions solved this problem?
Please reply privately to
Donna Phillips
BITNET PHILDON@MOREKY
VOICE (606)783-2153
SURFACE UPO 946
Morehead State University
Morehead, KY 40351
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Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1992 15:04:57 EST
From: jpotuche@CC.GETTYSBURG.EDU
Subject: RE:We are new at this!
This is a response to Donna Phillips's query. I'm posting it to the list
rather than sending it to Donna privately, because I think this is a
common tension in women's studies programs and attempts at solution are
of general interest:
At Gettysburg College, we went through quite a lot of struggle within
our Women's Studies committee over this issue. On the one hand, we wanted
to choose courses in a way that protected the scholarly quality of the
women's studies program; on the other hand, we were well aware of the
political risks we ran by excluding some courses. We finally set up two
classifications for courses -- core and affiliated -- with stricter
standards for the core courses than for the affiliated, but with a limit
on how many affiliated courses a student could count toward the women's
studies minor (no more than 2 out of 6). When a faculty member proposes
that a course count for credit toward the minor in women's studies (we don't
have a major yet), we send that faculty member a copy of the criteria
and then send a member of our women's studies committee to meet with the
faculty member. Together, the instructor and the committee member go
over the course syllabus or proposal and discuss how it fits the criteria.
On the basis of that discussion, the committee member makes a recommendation
to the entire committee, which makes the final decision. In practice, we
tend to be tough in applying the core course criteria and relatively easy
in applying the affiliated course criteria. (In other words, when there
is doubt, the course usually ends up being "affiliated.")
Here are the criteria we use:
CRITERIA FOR CORE WOMEN'S STUDIES COURSES
1. The course's principal focus must clearly be the roles,
contributions, perspectives, and experiences of women.
2. The course must equip students to identify and analyze
stereotyped assumptions and biases about women.
3. The course content must reflect the latest scholarship on
women and the syllabus should be composed primarily of works
by and about women.
4. Ideally, course pedagogy should correspond to course
content. That is to say, whenever and however appropriate
the instructor should use teaching techniques which
encourage student participation and, thus, active learning.
Exchange would be key to both the student/student relation-
ship and that of student and instructor.
CRITERIA FOR AFFILIATED WOMEN'S STUDIES COURSES
1. One of the course's principal areas of focus must clearly be
the roles, perspectives, experiences, contributions or
representations of women. (The intent of this criterion is
to be sure that women's issues are integrated into, not
merely added on to the course; we want to avoid tokenism.)
2. The course must equip students to identify systems of domi-
nation and subordination and analyze stereotyped assumptions
and biases about women.
3. The course content must clearly reflect recent feminist
scholarship on women and gender.
4. Ideally, course pedagogy should correspond to course
content. That is to say, whenever and however appropriate
the instructor should use teaching techniques which
encourage student participation and, thus, active learning.
Exchange would be key to both the student/student relation-
ship and that of student and instructor.
---------------
Jean L. Potuchek
Women's Studies Bitnet: jpotuche@gburg
Gettysburg College Internet:jpotuche@cc.gettysburg.edu
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Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1992 17:09:44 CST
From: Stephanie Riger
Subject: Re: We are new at this!
Lynne Goldsmith of Penn State has written an excellent paper on this
topic. The title of the paper is "When is a women's studies course a
"women's studies" course? Issues of "quality control" of cross-listed
courses." Her address is Women's STudies Program, 13 Sparks Building,
Penn State U, University Park, PA 16802.
I haven't checked with her about posting this, and I am concerned about
her being deluged with 400-some requests for reprints, so if you can,
perhaps you might offer to pay the cost of duplicating and mailing the
paper.
Stephanie Riger
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Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1992 18:34:00 EST
From: Joan Korenman
Subject: RE: We are new at this!
In response to Donna Phillips' question about how other Women's
Studies programs decide which courses to cross-list, I'd like to
re-post a message I sent to the list last September on this topic. My
apologies to those who have seen it before (the list has more than
doubled in size since then).
*********************************************************
The Women's Studies Program at UMBC (University of Maryland
Baltimore County) has a course approval procedure that must be
followed in order for a course to receive a WMST crosslisting (and
only courses with a WMST designation can be counted for Women's
Studies credit). We ask that the instructor of the course supply a
syllabus or other detailed description, briefly discuss her/his
teaching methods, and answer three questions. Here is a copy of the
sheet we give the instructor:
*************
COURSE APPROVAL FOR THE WOMEN'S STUDIES MINOR
Univ. of Maryland - Baltimore County
Baltimore, Maryland 21228-5398
In order for your course to be approved for inclusion in the
Women's Studies minor, the Women's Studies Coordinating Committee
needs the following pieces of information:
1) a detailed course description or syllabus, including the list
of readings and a description of your teaching method
2) your responses to the following three questions:
a) is the central focus of the course gender roles, women's
issues, and/or the status of or portrayal of women in history, the
arts, or the sciences? Please explain.
b) how does the course material reflect knowledge of
contemporary feminist scholarship about women?
c) why do you feel that this is a Women's Studies course
rather than just a course about women?
The committee would also welcome any additional materials that
might help in assessing the course's suitability for inclusion in the
Women's Studies minor.
***********
NOTE: Though at present the above questions do not directly
address issues of diversity (race, class, sexual preference, etc.),
the Women's Studies Coordinating Committee always looks for evidence
of diversity in the syllabus and, where necessary, raises the issue
with the instructor as part of the approval process. We have never
had to reject a course because of this issue, but we are certainly
prepared to do so. Probably in the future we will revise the
questions to include consideration of diversity.
The Women's Studies Coordinating Committee members all receive
copies of the instructor's response, and we then meet and discuss
whether to crosslist the course. Usually, we approve the course;
instructors who seek WMST crosslisting are usually self-selecting.
Occasionally, we ask for more information, or we ask to meet with the
instructor to discuss questions that we have. Every now and then, we
decide that the course should not be crosslisted, either because not
enough of the focus is on women or because the instructor seems
insufficiently familiar with contemporary Women's Studies scholarship
and perspectives. We do not ask or even desire that faculty toe a
narrow ideological line; we do ask that courses designated WMST be
informed by contemporary Women's Studies scholarship and provide
students with an understanding of feminist perspectives.
Joan Korenman Internet: korenman@umbc2.umbc.edu
Bitnet: korenman@umbc
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Date: 22 Nov 1992 15:14:14 CST
Here is the official statement we (at the University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign) send to people who want to cross-list courses with us:
"The Women's studies Advisory Committee believes that those courses listed
by the Women's Studies Program should be consonant with the stated purpose
of the program. This includes a feminist perspective. We ask that any course
listed as a Women's Studies course be taught in this spirit.
For this purpose the Women's Studies Advisory Committee has defined
a feminist perspective as one which recognizes women's roles and contribu-
tions to society. The ability of women as leaders, scholars, critics, and theo
ry-builders needs to be recognized. Serious consideration should also be
given to the concepts, tools and techniques of recent feminist scholarship
with special attention to the relatioship of this inquiry to the women's
movement."
Megan McLaughlin, Dept. of History, U. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Bitnet: megmclau@uiuc.vmd
Internet: megmclau@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu
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Date: Tue, 24 Nov 92 12:12:04 EDT
From: PHILDON@morekypr
PROPOSAL TO CROSSLIST COURSE IN WOMEN'S STUDIES
(Morehead State University)
To: Members of the Women's Studies Advisory Committee
From: _____________________________________
(name)
_____________________________________
(dept.)
I would like to submit the following course for consideration as
an elective in the Women's Studies minor.
______ _______ _______________________
_________________________________________ (term to be offered)
(pref) (#) (title)
This course already exists in the curriculum and has passed
criteria used by the university's curriculum committee. In
addition, it meets the following criteria, which were stated in
the proposal creating the minor in Women's Studies.
1. The principle focus of the course as it relates to women is:
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
2. The course addresses the following stereotyped assumptions
and biases about women:
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
3. The course encourages students to analyze the above mentioned
stereotypes and biases in the following manner:
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
4. The course content reflects the latest scholarship on women
in my discipline and the syllabus is composed primarily of works
by and for women, as exemplified by the attached syllabus or
detailed course description (include course readings and
descriptions of reading materials.
5. I understand that the committee encourages participating
faculty to use innovative teaching techniques which encourage
student participation and, thus, active learning. I encourage
participation in the following manner:
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
6. I understand that the Women's Studies minor program
encourages exchange of information both in student/student and
student/faculty relationships. This course promotes such
activities in the following manner:
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
7. I believe that this course deserves to be included in the
Women's Studies minor because:
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
8. In addition to the foregoing materials, I would like to add
information which I believe will assist the committee in
reviewing my proposal (optional):
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
9. Please get the signature of your department chairperson:
________________________________
(Name) (Date)
Please send the completed form with supporting materials to:
Judy Rogers, Dean of Undergraduate Programs
201 Ginger Hall
*****************************************************************************
Date: 24 Nov 1992 10:11:24 -0800 (PST)
From: SMANSFIELD@BENSON.CLAREMONT.EDU
Below is the policy used by the Intercollegiate Women's Studies
Program of the Claremont Colleges. It is send to anyone interested
in having a course accredited as a Women's Studies course. If a
course is taught by more than one faculty, each faculty must submit
the course individually.
Women's Studies invites submission of proposals for courses
in its interdisciplinary program devoted to the study of the roles,
contributions, and scholarship of women. Courses in Women's Studies
explore issued of race, class, sexual preference, and gender as they
affect the devlopment of women in a variety of cultural contexts.
They examine paradigms based upon recent women's scholarship that
contast with and question androcentric assumptions in traditional
methodologies, theories, and research.
When submitting a proposal for a primary course in Women's
Studies, the curriculum committee suggests that the professor use
the following guidelines for the inclusion of a course in the
Women's Studies curriculum. Introductory level courses generally
should focus on women's experience and should use, to the extent
possible, new data, methods, theories and analytic frameworks that
help to correct previous oversights and ethnocentric biases
inherent in the traditional interpretation of most course content,
as well as contrast these biases with perspectives emerging from
the new feminist scholarship in women's studies. More advanced
courses might incorporate feminist methodology of gender analysis
as their foundation. The committee encourages courses which foster
a climate of mutual inquiry in the classroom, and exchange of ideas
among faculty and students in group discussions, and an opportunity
for writing as an integral part of the on-going process of learning
and self-expression. These concerns should be reflected in the
course description and readings.
We continue to invite the submission of proposals for
related courses in which there is a substantial portion on women,
gender, or sex roles, or in which a student may emphasize by
prior arrangement with the instructor an aspect of the course
pertinent to Womeen's Studies.
Please include the following with either your primary or
related Women's Studies course proposal:
1. Course title and description,
2. Course objectives,
3. List of proposed readings for class assignments,
4. Prerequisites, if any,
5. Indication of appropriate course strategy -
i.e., primary or related.
Your brief proposal can be submitted either as an essay or on a
form provided by the Women's Studies Office.
SMANSFIELD@BENSON.CLAREMONT.EDU (for internet) or
GINNIE@GROVER.CLAREMONT.EDU
****************************************************************************
Date: Tue, 01 Dec 92 08:50 EST
From: WPSADGV@WMMVS.BITNET
Joan--I hope I have responded in time to become part of your
file on crosslisting. The College of William and Mary has a
policy that only interdisciplinary courses receive interdisci-
plinary labels. Therefore, crosslisting for Women's Studies
occurs only for an interdisciplinary course in Women's Studies
that could also be considered an interdiisciplinary course
for another program (our only crosslisted course thus far
is one titled "Feminist Writings and Women's Movements"
which is "a study of fictional and theoretical works produced
by European and Middle-Eastern women writers of the twentieth
century"--this course is cross-listed with International
Studies). The advantage of this system is that we can choose
to offer credit in Women's Studies to any courses in depart-
ments that we wish--but we don't have to offer credit for
anything (or anyone) we don't want to. Another advantage
is that I am often asked to evaluate courses for transfer
credit that are clearly departmental courses ("19th Century
Women Writers") and can insist that they be evaluated by
the department. The advantage here is that I have seen a
tendency for departments who think a course is marginal to
try to "dump" it on Women's Studies for credit rather than
award credit in their department. This way they face the
fact that there is scholarship in their discipline that is
being taught in the discipline in other universities--or in
the case where a course does seem below reasonable standards
for the discipline they make the decision that credit cannot
be awarded. I realize this rambles on; hope you can get the
gist of it.
Debbie Ventis WPSADGV@WMMVS
College of William & Mary