The following are excerpts from "Ideas and Resources for
Integrating Women's Studies into the Curriculum," a
publication of the Western States Project on Women in the
Curriculum, the Southwest Institute for Research on Women,
edited by Myra Dinnerstein and Betty Schmitz. The reproduced
materials that follow are from the "Project Descriptions"
section. In this section, different institutions have provided
explanations, and evaluations of different activities
organized to promote the inclusion of women in the curriculum.
***********
IDEAS AND RESOURCES FOR INTEGRATING WOMEN'S STUDIES INTO THE
CURRICULUM
WESTERN STATES PROJECT ON WOMEN IN THE CURRICULUM
SOUTHWEST INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH ON WOMEN
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
1986
***********
*******
UNIVERSITY OF ALBUQUERQUE
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Project Title:
Women in the Curriculum
Background:
The University of Albuquerque is a small four-year Catholic liberal
arts college. The University of Albuquerque has never had a women's
studies program or a women's center, nor has it in the past
provided incentives to faculty for offering women's studies courses
or for incorporating women's material into traditional courses. The
special impetus for initiating a curriculum integration project was
twofold: the university's core curriculum requirements were in the
process of being revamped, and the project director was in a unique
position, as chair of the core-curriculum subcommittee, to
implement the project.
Goals:
The project aimed to work through faculty members in the core
curriculum to ensure inclusion of scholarship on and by women in
the courses required of all students by disseminating information
to that core faculty.
Activities:
The project was directed by Glenda Gray, Chair of the Department of
Fine and Performing Arts. It began with a faculty development
workshop for all the core faculty, whose attendance was encouraged
by an invitation from the university's Academic Vice-President.
Karen Anderson of the NEH Curriculum Integration Project at the
University of Arizona was the workshop consultant. She spoke to
small faculty groups in the morning and gave a talk and responded
to questions in the afternoon. Two women scholars from the
University of Albuquerque, Joan Gibson and Rosalie Otero, also
addressed the group. Each participant received a packet containing
an article in her or his field, a bibliography, and a general
reading, "Women, Culture, and Society: A Theoretical Overview" by
Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo, for discussion with Dr. Anderson.
A follow-up survey was sent to ascertain people's needs and
interests. On the basis of that survey, faculty received additional
information, and a small-group workshop series was set up, centered
around the article "The Classroom Climate: A Chilly One for Women?"
Attendance at the series was small, but discussion was lively.
Results:
At the end of the academic year, copies of a course evaluation were
sent to faculty, to be filled out by students in each core class.
Approximately 400 questionnaires are being tabulated and evaluated,
and the results will be available on request from the project
director.
One obvious outcome of the project is that faculty in the core
curriculum are much more aware of the scholarship on and by women
than they were previously. People began to use the director as a
materials person to whom they sent book references, notes about
conferences, and clippings pertaining to women's accomplishments
and works.
Another important result is the formation of a group of faculty
women who plan to meet at least once a month to discuss problems,
have programs, and continue the publicity/interest generated by the
grant. The group may also serve as a clearinghouse for possible
student complaints against faculty.
Contact Person:
Glenda R. Gray
Chair, Fine and Performing Arts Department
University of Albuquerque
St. Joseph Place, NW
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87105
*******
CENTRAL WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
Ellensburg, Washington
Project Title:
Integrating Women Studies into the Curriculum
Background:
Central Washington University is one of three regional four-year
universities in the state of Washington. The student population on
campus is 6,347, and over half of these students are women.
Fifty-one of the 287 faculty are women. The Women Studies Program
offers a twenty-five quarter credit minor. It is an
interdisciplinary program with no women studies prefix, thus
lacking visibility.
The Women Studies Program was evaluated by both an internal review
committee and an external reviewer during 1983-84 to determine how
the academic program might be strengthened. The Western States
Project grant provided an incentive to design a program of outreach
to selected faculty to broaden their understanding of the new
scholarship on women.It WAS hoped that this new awareness of the
scholarship would encourage all faculty, including those who teach
the courses in the women studies minor, to examine courses on a
regular basis and revise them as necessary.
Goals:
The goals of the project were: (l) to increase awareness among
faculty of the need to integrate new research and perspectives from
women's studies into the general education curriculum of the
university and; (2) to reach more undergraduate students at CWU by
integrating the new scholarship on women into selected courses
fulfilling general education requirements.
The project was designed around a curriculum development model
previously used at CWU with great success. The approach entailed
providing training to faculty through seminars with outside
experts,soliciting proposals from faculty for course revision, and
providing stipends and additional seminars for those faculty
selected as participants.
Activities:
Janice Monk, Executive Director of the Southwest Institute for
Research on Women, and a nationally known figure in geography, came
to campus in December 1984. She presented several lectures to both
students and faculty, and met on an individual basis with selected
depart-mental faculties. Her visit was preceded by a newsletter to
all faculty describing the activities of the project.
Following Monk's visit, a steering committee was established. The
committee was composed of the project director (Director of Women's
Studies), a faculty member from the biology department, a
librarian, a member of the Women Studies Advisory Committee, and
two faculty who teach courses in the women studies minor. The
committee developed a process for selecting faculty to participate
in the project. A letter with an attached proposal application was
then sent to every faculty member. Six proposals were submitted.
The proposals were evaluated,and five were accepted. A series of
six seminars was conducted during winter quarter, in the course of
which members of the faculty led discussions of major works in
feminist scholarship, and project participants presented ideas and
strategies for course revision.
Results:
The results of the project exceeded expectations. The seminars were
held weekly at three o'clock on Friday. There were never fewer than
eleven faculty, representing between nine to eleven departments, in
attendance. Three of the six steering committee members attended
every seminar. There were also visitors at each seminar. Every
week, discussion following the presentations extended beyond the
five o'clock hour.
Revised syllabi were submitted to the steering committee for review
and subsequent acceptance. Both grant recipients and steering
committee members completed year-end evaluations of the project.
Two significant developments have already resulted from
participation in the integration process. One project participant
submitted an article to a leading journal concerning insights
resulting from her participation in the project, as well as a
description of a new theory course that resulted from her work.
Another participant, who revised and taught human geography,
compiled a notebook containing student reports about Third World
women in twenty-one countries. The notebook has been given to the
women studies library. Also, for the first time,students began to
use the women studies library for research.
Contact Person:
Dorothy Sheldon
Director, Center for Women Studies
Central Washington University
Ellensburg, WA 98926
*******
COLORADO COLLEGE
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Project Title:
Faculty Seminars on the New Scholarship on Women
Background:
Colorado College, a small, private, coeducational liberal arts
college, recently adopted a general education curriculum that
emphasizes an appreciation of the diversity of human culture and
experience. Al-though women's studies is an important element of
the new program, some faculty were concerned that the study of
women and gender be a fully integrated part of the college
curriculum, not simply an isolated component of it.
Goals:
In order to assist the faculty in appreciating the new scholarship
on women as they went about their commitment to expand and
diversify the curriculum, the project aimed: (l) to involve faculty
in the new scholarship on women; (2) to encourage curricular
revisions that would incorporate the new analyses, perspectives,
and methodologies that have emerged from feminist revisions of
traditional courses; (3) to enhance and strengthen the developing
Women's Studies Program within the college.
Activities:
Margaret Duncombe, Associate Professor of Sociology, directed the
project, and was assisted by Christine Sierra, Assistant Professor
of Political Science, and Judith Genova, Associate Professor of
Philosophy. The project consisted of six seminars, each with a
visiting scholar who presented a lecture to invited faculty
familiar with the broad outlines of the scholar's work. The
scholars were Carol Nagy Jacklin on sex differences, Susan
Scarberry-Garcia on Native American women's literature, Ines
Talamantez on Native American women's rituals, Marcia Westkott on
psychological development, Patricia Zavella on work and the family,
and Adrienne Zihlman on woman the gatherer. Bibliographies and
readings were provided for each seminar. Sixty-three faculty
participated in at least one of the six seminars. Each scholar also
gave a public lecture and met with interested faculty. The project
concluded with a seventh, evaluative seminar conducted by the
series organizers.
Results:
The seminars, which formed the major lecture series for both
faculty and students in the 1984-85 academic year, were very
successfulin increasing the visibility and validity of the new
scholarship on women. One colleague said that the seminars
increased his "growing respect for my feminist colleagues as
competent scholars." The public lectures were well attended by
students and people from the Colorado Springs community.
Virtually all who participated claimed that the seminars had
affected their thinking in ways that would eventually affect their
classes:
[Y]our programs raised general questions about
assumptions/processes in many areas of thought--scientific,
sociological,political--to do with women, and I would expect
those questions and responses to them to affect my thinking
about the teaching ofliterature and general education at the
college.
[T]he seminar reinforced my conviction that I must continue to
include works by women in all of my courses. . . . These works
by women philosophers who have gone unrecognized need to be
included, and I intend to include them. We are going to
reorganize some ofour basic offerings in philosophy and we
will consciously include women writers and women's issues.
The purpose of the seminar series was to integrate women's studies
into the traditional men's studies curriculum. Five faculty members
indicated that they had already changed their course materials.
These changes are modest--additions of seminar readings or
topics--but important. Faculty representing seventeen courses have
indicated that they intend to make changes in their courses. Some
changes are very modest:"[I will] try out the 'Human Evolution
Coloring Book'. . . ." Others promise more fundamental changes:
In my research design class, I am hoping to rework the
syllabus to include more exemplary studies by women, . . . add
a general article that examines the social contexts of
scientific research . . .[and one that] addresses the social
context issue in terms ofhistorical sex differences research.
A final possibility would be to use a replication of a 'sex
bias' experiment as one of the lab assignments....
Contact Person:
Margaret Duncombe
Colorado College
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80903
INTEGRATING THE NEW SCHOLARSHIP ON WOMEN INTO THE CURRICULUM
COLORADO COLLEGE
1984-85
FACULTY SEMINARS AND ALL-CAMPUS PRESENTATIONS
Susan Scarberry-Garcia, Visiting Professor of English, Colorado
College
Seminar: "White Shell Woman's Song: Remaking the Literary
Tradition"
Target Courses:
EN201: Introduction to Literature
EN211: Fiction
EN390: Literature of the American Southwest
Lecture: "White Shell Woman's Song: Remaking the Literary
Tradition"
Carol Nagy Jacklin, Professor of Psychology and Director of the
Center for the Study of Women and Men in Society, University of
Southern California
Seminar: "Tracking the Development of Sex Differences"
Target Courses:
PY100: Introduction to Psychology: Bases of Behavior
PY104: Developmental Psychology
Lecture: "Stalking the Development of Sex Differences"
Ines Talamantez, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies,
University of California at Santa Barbara
Seminar: "Comparative Rites of Passage: The Significance ofResearch
on Native American Women's Rituals"
Target Courses:
RE101: Introduction to Religion
RE122: Religion in America
HS221: Women, Myth and Culture
Lecture: "Female Initiation: Introducing Mescalero ApacheGirls to
the World of Spiritual and Cultural Values"
Patricia Zavella, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University
of California st Santa Cruz
Seminar: "Women's Work, Changing Families: The Subtle Revolution?"
Target Courses:
S0210: Marxian Theory
S0225: Sociology of the Chicano Experience
S0350: Marxism After Marx
Lecture: "Women's Work, Changing Values: The Subtle Revolution?"
Marcia Westkott, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of
Colorado at Colorado Springs
Seminar: "Toward a Psychology of Women"
Target Courses:
HS204: Western Concepts of the Psyche
PY120: Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy
PY140: Abnormal Psychology
S0220: Sociology of Mental Illness
Lecture: "Nurturance and Rage: Psychological Development in Women"
Adrienne Zihlman, Professor of Anthropology, University of
California at Santa Cruz
Seminar: "Theories About Human Origins: Some are More Equal Than
Others"
Target Courses:
AN101: Introduction to Physical Anthropology
AN315: Theory in Physical Anthropology
GY120: History of Life
GY330: Introduction to Physical Anthropology
Lecture: "Women in Evolution: The Ongoing Debate"
*******
COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY
Fort Collins, Colorado
Project Title:
Integrating New Scholarship on Women Into the Core Curriculum of a
Professional Social Work Education Program
Background:
Colorado State University is a comprehensive, research-oriented,
land-grant university with the mission of providing a balanced
program of teaching, research, extension, and public service. The
College of Professional Studies, in which the Department of Social
Work is located, shares in this mission. The social work department
has offered the bachelor of arts in social work since 1971. For a
number of years the social work faculty has been concerned about
providing content on diverse populations, ethnicity, women, and
related issues in the curriculum. Attempts have been made on
several occasions to review the curriculum with this purpose in
mind. In addition, there has been an ongoing debate whether to deal
with diversity through separate specialized courses or through
integration of materials into all classes.
In the fall of 1984, a new master's degree program was added to the
social work curriculum, the theme of which incorporates a focus
on"transitional" populations, including women in both rural and
transitional communities. The need to design courses for the
master's curriculum which would interlace with the bachelor's
curriculum provided the opportunity for a review of the curriculum
with women in mind. The Council on Social Work Education,
responsible for accrediting the new program, explicitly mandates
that every social work program "shall make continuous efforts to
assure the enrichment of the educational experience it offers by
including women in all categories of persons related to the program
and by incorporating content on women's issues into the
curriculum."
Goals:
The overall project goal was to facilitate the integration of
recent scholarship on women into core courses: Social Work
Practice, Social Welfare Policy, Human Behavior in the Social
Environment, and Social Research.
Activities:
Initially the project was directed by Mary Boland, who was
succeeded by Betty Broadhurst. Five consultants were recruited,
each with substantial expertise in both scholarship on women and at
least on specific social work content area. The consultants
included Emma Grossof the Graduate School of Social Work,
University of Utah; Arietta Maria, Director of the Weekend College,
Loretto Heights College; Pattie Cowell, Coordinator of the Women
Studies Program and a member of the Department of English faculty,
Colorado State University; Janet Fritz, Associate Professor of
Human Development and Family Studies, Colorado State University;
and Karen Wedge, Director of the Office of Women's Programs and a
member of the Department of Education faculty, Colorado State
University. They came to campus for one day in November to meet
with the faculty as a group, by content areas, and with the
curriculum committee. Following this meeting, they submitted six
recommendations resulting from their review of course outlines and
discussions with the faculty. The recommendations included examples
of how the identified deficiencies could be remedied.
The consultants returned in January 1985 for a full-day curriculum
development workshop for interested social work faculty. This
included the discussion of issues, a review of bibliographical
materials, the distribution of sample course outlines, and a
hands-on literature display. As a result of the workshop, a list of
four recommendations was developed and presented to the Department
of Social Work.
Results:
The original plan called for the faculty to incorporate the
recommendations into their course outlines during the spring 1985
semester. In reality, the press of work necessitated that the
faculty postponework on their outlines until summer. They voted
unanimously to offer a separate course on women in 1985-86. The
revised outlines for integrated courses went to the curriculum
committee for review in the fall of 1985. The overall outcomes of
the project included consciousness-raising and brain-storming on
how ideas presented through project activities could be applied.
Contact Person:
Betty P. Broadhurst
Associate Professor
Department of Social Work
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, Colorado 80523
*******
EASTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
Cheney, Washington
Project Title:
The Team Approach to Women's Studies Integration
Background:
Eastern Washington University, historically the primary teacher
training institution of the inland Pacific Northwest, is a state
univer-sity enrolling 7200 students, located in the small town of
Cheney,fifteen miles from urban Spokane. In 1979 Eastern Washington
University began to reassess its curriculum and restructure its
General University Requirements; by 1983 new and revised courses
fulfilling these requirements were frequent throughout the
university. As part of the process, and as a result of urging on
the part of women's studies, black education, chicano education,
and Indian studies, the university also passed a cultural diversity
requirement which could be satisfied, among other ways, by a course
focusing on women. Among the twenty-eight courses offered by
women's studies, however, only three met the diversity requirement,
and women's scholarship was still reaching only a small number of
students. The desire to reach more students was combined with
strong support from both faculty and administration for introducing
the new scholarship into a greater variety of courses.
During the 1982-83 academic year, the Director of Women's Programs
initiated a pilot curriculum integration project. Thirty-five
faculty were on the original project committee, which was divided
into area taskforces, each concentrating on projects appropriate to
particular disciplinary needs. An outside consultant was brought to
campus to address the general faculty about the new scholarship on
women and meetwith academic departments. Several projects were
completed that year, such as discipline-specific computer searches
and a revision of the introductory psychology course, but the
committee felt the greatest barrier to more substantive change was
the lack of faculty time to undertake research and course revision.
Goals:
In response to this finding, a project employing a team approach to
course revision was designed, which paired a student resource
person with a faculty member to do research leading to revision of
a specificcourse. The project was designed to:
1. enable willing but busy faculty to participate without an
initial commitment to long hours of research;
2. bring the new scholarship on women into classes fulfilling
general education requirements;
3. enable graduate and undergraduate students to participate
indeveloping course content and to contribute their enthusiasm and
energy; and
4. ensure the success of the general endeavor even when individuals
within it failed to continue.
The project committee consisted of the already existing
fifteen-member Women's Studies Curriculum Committee, made up
largely of women's studies faculty.
Activities:
A letter offering assistance in identifying scholarship relevant to
specific courses was sent to all faculty by the Vice
President/Provost for Academic Affairs and the Director of Women's
Programs. The project director assigned a resource person for each
proposed course approved by the women's studies project committee.
Most resource persons were graduate students with special interests
in women's studies, or honor undergraduates with women's studies
minors or strong interests in women's issues. Fourteen teams were
formed in ten disciplinary areas, including black studies and
Indian studies.
The resource person in each team was paid a $300 personal stipend
and/or directed study credit and given an operations budget of $100
for copying and computer searches. She/he was responsible for doing
the primary research after discussing the course needs and designs
with the instructor. All project participants met together three
times during the year with library faculty members and the project
committee. One of these meetings featured a panel of minority women
faculty and students who discussed the scholarship on minority
women. At the final meeting, each team submitted a project
description, a bibliography, and "before" and "after" syllabi of
the course.
Results:
Ten teams completed and submitted their work in June 1984. In the
second year, ten new courses were admitted to the project. Some of
these were funded by funds from the Faculty Development Office,
others rewarded resource people with directed study credit only. It
is estimated that over 3000 students were reached. Among approaches
taken in course revision were:
1. Critiques of Traditional Scholarship--text and film reviews;
correspondence with authors and publishers; critical essays as
class assignments
2. Teaching Style and Attitude Assessment--surveys of student
attitudes and studies of male/female interaction with the
instructor
3. New Information--information packets compiled for the instructor
and for distribution to other faculty; guest speakers, including
presentations by resource people; new,gender-balanced topics for
papers, essay exam questions, class debates, field trips and
research assignments; new lecture topics and course units;
bibliographies; lists of historically important women and examples
of their work; biographical material and taped interviews of
contemporary women distinguished in their field.
One supplemental text will be written and five presentations have
been or will be made by faculty or resource persons at local or
national meetings.
Project Director:
Gertrude L. Swedberg
Director of Women's Studies
115 Monroe Hall
Eastern Washington University
Cheney, WA 99004
*******
FAIRHAVEN COLLEGE
WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
Bellingham, Washington
Project Title:
Fairhaven College Faculty Development and Core Curriculum Project
Background:
Fairhaven College is a small, interdisciplinary cluster college of
Western Washington University, conceived in the late sixties in a
climate of political activism and exploration of educational
alterna-tives. The first women studies course at WWU was taught at
Fairhaven in 1970, and the university's Women Studies Program,
established in 1972, has been directed by a Fairhaven faculty
member since 1977. Sixty-five percent of Fairhaven's 210 students
are female, and they are typically a few years older than average
college students. Seventy percent of Fairhaven students design
their own majors. The three women among the fourteen regular
Fairhaven faculty members and a woman who regularly teaches one or
two classes a year offer a series of women studies courses focusing
on history, psychology, anthropology, economics, and communication.
For several years, Fairhaven faculty have been fairly receptive to
the college curriculum committee's suggestions for topics,
resources, and activities that would extend the scope of classes
beyond the experience of white male elites. A conference on
integrating women into the curriculum, sponsored by the Western
States Project on Women in the Curriculum on the WWU campus in the
spring of 1984, prompted the curriculum committee to make a
definite commitment to equity in thecurriculum, starting with the
seven courses required at the lower division level of the core
curriculum. Faculty interest in the project was heightened by a
perception that some of the most dynamic and committed students at
Fairhaven are in women studies and by a hope that a substantive
discussion of curriculum integration would address a larger concern
for coherence in the series of courses which form the core
curriculum.
Goals:
1. to familiarize faculty with new feminist scholarship and
acquaint them with the issues and methodological challenges
ofcurriculum integration;
2. to restructure the substance and form of core classes to reflect
equity in gender, race, and class;
3. to explore pedagogical techniques for helping students learn to
question assumptions and methodologies in traditional approaches to
knowledge; and
4. to develop a model core curriculum that might be adapted on a
larger scale for WWU general university requirements.
Activities:
A general faculty development seminar series was essential for
achieving project goals, because core classes are staffed each year
by different teams of faculty on a rotating basis. The seminar
series began in the fall with a program at the annual two-day
faculty retreat. Nona Glazer of Portland State University's
Department of Sociology served as a consultant and led a discussion
of several readings which faculty had received prior to the
retrest, focusing on the distinction between transformation and
reform. These discussions served to accentuate the need for a
greater familiarity with existing scholarship.
Nine seminars were scheduled for the academic year, in which
experts presented basic readings in feminist scholarship and
discussed specific issues which curriculum integration raises in
their fields. Most of the seminars were linked to a specific course
in the core curriculum, and faculty discussed plans and assessed
results of their efforts to integrate core classes. Presenters
included regular Fairhaven faculty members Kathryn Anderson on
history, Leslie Conton on anthropology, Constance Faulkner on
economics; adjunct Fairhaven faculty Dana Jack on psychology and
Janet Campbell Hale on Indian studies; and WWU faculty members
Meredith Cary on literature and Saundra Taylor on black studies. In
addition, Nancy Hartsock of the University of Washington presented
a colloquium on her work in classical political theory, cosponsored
by the political science department. Two Fairhaven faculty in
science and mathematics attenaed the Lewis and Clark Women's
Studies Symposium which focused on gender and science, and reported
their experiences in a special seminar.
Results:
Faculty made major efforts to attend the seminars and keep up with
the assigned reading. They found the intellectual and pedagogical
issues both stimulating and challenging; it was clearly the most
successful effort ever undertaken to sustain a discussion of
substantive issues. This success rested in part on the capacity of
gender issues to provide a basis for rethinking the substance and
format of traditional education.
The most thoroughly integrated core classes (three out of six) were
taught by individuals or teams including individuals with previous
background in feminist scholarship. Others added texts and topics
that they might not have otherwise included. The Fairhaven College
curriculum committee will continue to monitor proposals for core
classes. The focused attention to issues of gender, race and class
has added weight to the committee's insistence that the curriculum
be inclusive. Pedagogical questions raised by this project have
prompted a further focus on learning styles and cognitive
development for faculty discussion in 1985-86, with a continuing
interest in gender implications.
The Fairhaven Faculty Development and Core Curriculum Project will
be presented to a committee working on a revision of the WWU
general university requirements in the fall of 1985.
Contact Person:
Kathryn Anderson
Director of Women Studies
Fairhaven College
Western Washington University
Bellingham, WA 98225
FAIRHAVEN COLLEGE
FACULTY DEVELOPMENT AND CORE CURRICULUM PROJECT
SEMINAR SERIES
October 25, 1984 Kathryn Anderson, Women Studies, Fairhaven"New
Scholarship on Women in History"
November 1, 1984 Kathryn Anderson and John McClendon, "Revising
the Historical Perspectives Core Course"
November 15, 1984 Janet Campbell Hale, Indian Studies, Fairhaven
"WASP-Colored Glasses Obscure Education's Broader and More Accurate
Visionof Multi-Ethnic Cultural Diversity"
Leslie Conton, Anthropology, Fairhaven'INew Scholarship on Women in
Anthropology"
November 15, 1984 Saundra Taylor, Western WashingtonUniversity
"Black Studies and the Core Curriculum"
Leslie Conton and Michael Burnett,"Revising the Cross-cultural
PerspectivesClass"
November 29, 1984 Meredith Cary, Western Washington University
"Women and Literature: An Interdisciplinary Perspective"
February 13, 1985 Kathryn Anderson and Leslie Conton, "The
Challenge of Integrating Multicultural Awareness in the Core
Curriculum at Fairhaven."
February 28, 1985 Nancy Hartsock, The University of Washington
"Images of Women and Men in Western Political Thought"
March 7, 1985 Don McLeod and Paul Glenn, Fairhaven. "Revising the
Artistic Perspectives Class"
May 8, 1985 Gary Bornzin and David Mason, Fairhaven "Science and
Gender." Report on the Lewis and Clark Symposium and discussion of
revising the Scientific Perspectives Course.
May 9, 1985 Dana Jack, Fairhaven "The Impact of Feminist
Scholarship on Psychology"
May 23, 1985 Constance Faulkner, Fairhaven "Feminist Scholarship
and Economics" and"Revising the Social Perspectives Course"
*******
GONZAGA UNIVERSITY
Spokane, Washington
Project Title:
Integrating the New Scholarship on Women into the Curriculum
Background:
Gonzaga University, a Jesuit university with 3,400 students, has a
strong commitment to liberal arts and a mission statement which
emphasizes creativity, intelligence, and initiative in the
construction of society and culture. Gonzaga University does not
have a women's studies program, and the new research on women has
not been integrated into the curriculum in a systematic way. The
success of a Women's History Week celebration, however, provided a
climate for change.
A small group of faculty, administrators, and staff began to meet
to discuss women's experiences and formed a Women's Integration
Committee (WIC). This group included three faculty who regularly
teach courses in the field of women's studies and whose research
interests are in this area. The Western States Project on Women in
the Curriculum presentedan ideal way to extend this discussion to
the entire faculty.
Goals:
The primary goal of the project was to legitimate feminist research
and to make faculty aware of its intellectual rigor, diversity, and
creative possibilities for their own course work and research. A
secondary goal was to introduce faculty to substantive issues in
feminist studies, the vocabulary within this research (particularly
in the social sciences), and key texts which form a basis for this
research.
Activities:
Since many of the faculty were unfamiliar with feminist research,
a workshop was held to introduce them to this body of scholarship
and the issues and concerns it articulates. The workshop was an
all-day event, with Jean Bethke Elshtain, Professor of Political
Science at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, serving as the
main speaker. In preparation for the workshop, a faculty advisory
committee formed to recruit faculty from various departments and to
serve as a soundingboard for the preparation of a list of workshop
concepts. This list was intended to introduce the faculty to the
vocabulary and central issues in feminist studies and to dispel any
misunderstandings that may have existed because of the
misrepresentation of feminism in the popular media. The workshop
included a discussion of these concepts with an invitation to
faculty to continue to discuss and develop them, presentations by
faculty doing feminist research, and two presentations by Jean
Bethke Elshtain, one emphasizing theoretical issues and one
practicalapplication. Both provided ample time for faculty
discussion.
Results:
Because the goal was primarily to increase awareness and respect
for feminist studies, it is difficult to measure the results.
However, in one of their recent reports, the Jesuit faculty stated
that the university was fortunate to have active feminists among
the faculty. The Women's Integration Committee grew in number and
diversity, and many faculty and administrators have encouraged WIC
to continue its work. The committee is currently seeking funding to
establish women's studies courses on campus. Several faculty have
added feminist texts and components to their courses, and three new
courses in feminist studies have been added to the curriculum.
However, a more important result is that more faculty see feminist
studies as an area of serious inquiry and a source for creative
intellectual work. Those who were already doing feminist research
find that the university is regarding their work morehighly, and
the number of women and men faculty interested in feminist studies
has increased. In short, there is a stronger commitment to feminist
studies among faculty and a larger core of people to carry out that
commitment.
Contact Person:
Eloise Buker
Department of Political Science
Gonzaga University
Spokane, WA 99258
GONZAGA UNIVERSITY
THE INTEGRATION OF THE NEW RESEARCH ON WOMEN
February 2, 1985
Workshop Agenda
8:00 AM Coffee: Counseling Center, AD 303
9:00 AM Welcome: Statement of Purpose and Procedures
9:10-9:40 AM Introduction of Concepts: Dr. Jane Rinehart
9:40-10:40 AM Professor Jean Bethke Elshtain: What is feminist
analysis? What new research has been done? What does it mean for
social analysis? What implications does this research have for
teaching and conducting inquiry in the humanities and the sciences?
10:40-10:50 AM Break
10:55-11:45 AM Responses to the speaker and discussion
11:45-1:00 PM Lunch: Spokane Room of the COG
1:00-1:45 PM Professor Jean Bethke Elshtain: Strategies for
integration of new research on women into the classroom; classroom
strategies, university structures; women's studies as a separate
department or as an integrated approach; disciplines and strategies
which emerge; approaches to analysis, and new areas of inquiry
1:45-2:30 PM Discussion of strategies and their application
to Gonzaga
2:30-2:40 PM Break
2:40-3:00 PM Panel presenting activities at Gonzaga which
incorpo-rate the new research on women. Members: Fr. Revin Waters,
Dr. Jane Rinehart,Dr. RaGena de Aragon
3:00-4:00 PM Responses to the panel from Professor Jean
Bethke Elshtain and the group.
3:00-4:00 PM Plan for projects which will continue the
integration of the new research on women into the curriculum at
Gonzaga: Annotated bibliography for interdisciplinary use ofnew
research on women; library resources formaterials; list of
professional resources in the Spokane area; collection of stories
which illustrate values which we wish to create and problems we see
4:00-4:15 PM Summary statements
4:15 PM Reception: Faculty Lounge of the AD building
5:30 PM For those who wish: A no-host dinner at the
Cataldo Dining Hall
7:00 PM Fireside chat with Professor Jean Bethke
Elshtain,including personal reflections on balancing familyand
career; on introducing political issues intocourses; publishing
strategies for those who engage in feminist scholarship; and the
integration of ourresponsibilities as scholars and as citizens in
our focus on women
Follow-up session Aprll 12. Friday afternoon
Steering Committee
Eloise Buker
RaGena de Aragon
Kathleen Finley
Valeria Finucci
Mary Garvin
Florence Gillman
Mary Ann Hertz
Francoise Kuester
David Lineweber
Jane Rinehart
Maureen Sheridan
Phyllis Taufen
Edward Vacha
Sue Weitz
Sally Wellman
Lise Ross
GONZAGA UNIVERSITY
Workshop on Women in the Curriculum
April 12, 1985
The sessions will be conducted independently; please come to any
one of the sessions which interests you.
All three sessions in AD 314:
(1) 2:10-3:00 PM: Feminism and Sexism: Roundtable Discussion lesdby
Sr. Mary Garvin and Fr. Michael Cook, focusing on: What do
theseterms mean in relationship to our academic commitments to
truth snd oursociety's desire to create the just socisl order?
(2) 3:10-4:00 PM: "Search for Ourselves, Hear Us As We Write:
Re-flection and Feminist Theorizing," Dr. Jane Rinehart,
presentation withdiscussion.
(3) 4:10-5:00 PM: "Is the Classroom a Chilly Climate for Women?"
Apanel led by Maureen Sheridan which will analyze the problems
femalestudents encounter and present strstegies for sddressing
these problems.Panel members include: Edward Vacha, Francoise
~uesterJ and RaGena deAragon.
5:00 Refreshments -- Faculty Lounge
*******
HERITAGE COLLEGE
Toppenish, Washington
Project Title:
Women as Resources
Background:
Heritage College, currently in its fourth year of operation, is the
transformation of seventy-five-year-old Fort Wright College
(formerly Holy Names College) of Spokane, through a change in name,
location of administrative offices, and ownership. In 1981 a group
of civic, business, religious, and educational leaders in the lower
Yakima Valley of central Washington incorporated as Heritage
College and became its first Board of Directors in order to
continue to provide educational programs to the rural populations
in Omak and Toppenish. On July 1, 1982, the new institution emerged
as an independent, private college with its main campus in
Toppenish, within the boundaries of the Yakima Indian Reservation,
and with extended campuses in Omak, Spokane and Wenatchee.
As a new institution, Heritage College is in the process of
reviewing and revising its curriculum. To integrate women's studies
into the curriculum seems not only appropriate to a college begun
in the decade of women, but essential for the accomplishment of its
mission: to provide quality, accessible, higher education at the
undergraduate and graduate levels to a multicultural population
which has been education- ally isolated. On the Toppenish Campus,
where the project was conducted, the student body of 248 has an
average age of 32, and is one- third each Caucasian, American
Indian, and Hispanic. Sixty-four percent of the students are women,
of whom 22 percent are over forty. More than 66 percent of the
students receive some type of financial aid, and more than half
have at least a part-time job. The impetus for the project lay as
much within the student body as with faculty and administration
committed to integration of women's studies into the curriculum.
The students' exuberance, dedication, and sense of achievement has
allowed the project to prosper and, more importantly, to influence
the community. The president of the college, together with the
academic dean, who served as project co-director, provided the
necessary leadership to unite the faculty and staff around the goal
of the project: namely, to integrate women's studies across
disciplines into the total curriculum. The full-time faculty of
eight contributed both vision and dedication to achieving the
program's goals.
Goals and Activities:
The project was designed to achieve its broad goal of integrating
women's studies into the curriculum through three major activities:
1. a workshop to raise the level of awareness of faculty about the
new scholarship on women and its implications for reconceptualizing
the disciplines;
2. the development and dissemination of course-specific
bibliographies for faculty;
3. the acquisition of library and media resources in women's
studies; and
4. research assistance for faculty undertaking course revision.
Because Heritage College is a small college and the spirit of a
common mission prevails, it was presumed that all faculty would
take part in the workshop and begin to make changes in courses.
In February 1985, a workshop conducted by Corky Bush of the
University of Idaho Women's Center sensitized the faculty to the
depth and breadth of women's studies as a discipline and the need
for change in the traditional curriculum. Participants in the
workshop identified courses needing revision, along with faculty
members who would implement those revisions. They recommended
readings lists and delineated a time frame for the process of
integration. A library acquisition committee formed after the
workshop to identify women's studies materials available in the
college library and to purchase new resource materials for a
variety of disciplines. In May, a leader in education from the
local community was named as resource coordinator to work with each
instructor making revisions. By locating available materials and
contacting other women's studies centers, she assisted faculty with
revision of syllabi, integration of appropriate materials, and
evaluation of the quality of revised courses.
Results:
As a result of the project, ten courses will have been revised
appropriately and undergirded with substantial library and media
resources. The process of integration will continue in the coming
years.
Contact Person:
MaryCarmen Cruz
Heritage College
Route 3, Box 3540
Toppenish, WA 98948
HERITAGE COLLEGE--WOMEN AS RESOURCES WORKSHOP
Friday, February 22
2:00-3:00 Training session for Project Committee. Corky Bush
(consultant). Mary Carmen Cruz (project director), Rose Arthur and
Diana Fairbanks (project coordinators).
4:00-5:00 Workshop for Facilitators of each department
(Chairpersons, campus dean and coordinators welcome.) in Math Lab
Interdisciplinary Studies - Walter Smith/Cheryl LaFlamme
Science/Math - Randall Newton Education - Mary Rita Rhode Business
- Diana Fairbanks Pre-Majors - Dick Sawrey
5:00-6:00 Dinner (Project committee)
6:30-7:00 Welcoming Address - Dr. Kathleen Ross, President
7:00-7:30 General Discussion with Department Heads (Panel)
7:30-8:00 Wine and Cheese Social
8:00-10:00 Introduction to Women's Studies (Corky Bush). Open
to invited guests.
Saturday, February 23
9:00-10:00 Interdisciplinary Studies - Room 103, Corky Bush
10:00-10:30 Education - Room 105, Corky Bush
10:30-11:00 Pre-Majors - Room 101, Corky Bush
11:00-12:00 Science/Math - Room 106, Corky Bush
12:00-1:00 Summary Session in Cafeteria
*******
KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Manhattan, Kansas
Project Title:
Integrating the New Scholarship on Women Into Basic Sociology
Service Courses: A Model
Background:
For three years the Women's Studies Program at Kansas State
University has been working to integrate the new scholarship on
women into the basic courses on campus, particularly in history,
psychology, and sociology. Basic courses in sociology reach nearly
3,000 students from various colleges within the university each
year.
Goals:
The project aimed to expand previous efforts within the Department
of Sociology in order to reach more of the faculty and graduate
teaching assistants. One of the primary goals was to make these
teachers aware of print and nonprint materials available on campus
through the Women's Studies Program, the library, the Minorities
Resource Center, the Mid- west Race and Sex Desegregation
Assistance Center, professional resources, resources within the
department, and so forth. Another goal was to link specific faculty
teaching needs to specific pieces of new scholarship. Project
organizers hoped that this specific linkage would result not merely
in the addition of new scholarship on women to old course material,
but also in the fundamental transformation of the courses.
Activities:
The project was directed by Cornelia Butler Flora, assisted by Mary
Ann Campbell in the first semester and Gamine Meckel in the second.
The first activity was to analyze current syllabi and to talk
individually with faculty and graduate teaching assistants about
the needs in their service courses. In group meetings, faculty and
project staff discussed the goals of the introductory service
courses and the types of materials and teaching strategies that
could be useful; one-on-one meetings proved to be most helpful. The
research assistants constantly updated their literature searches,
presenting faculty and graduate teaching assistants with specific
articles and data and developing several bibliographies as well.
All interested persons have free access to a departmental file and
shelf with collected materials.
One research assistant and the director of undergraduate studies in
the department attended the El Paso conference of the Western
States Project on Women in the Curriculum in October 1984,
returning with several new ideas and strategies. The project team
publicized several sponsored presentations in the department and
also presented a roundtable discussion of the project and
integrative techniques at the annual meeting of the Midwest
Sociological Society in St. Louis.
Results:
Although attendance was low at the project's session at the Midwest
meeting, a lively exchange of ideas took place, and those who
attended the session were stimulated with eagerness to begin or
expand work at their own institutions. At the local level, faculty
and graduate teaching assistants are now much more aware of the
resources available on campus than they were previously. Several of
them have incorporated new scholarship on women into their courses,
including four sections of Introduction to Sociology, as well as
Social Problems, Introduction to Social Work, Criminology, Juvenile
Delinquency, and Social Organization; these teachers critique
existing theory and research by using materials provided through
the project. The more successfully used written materials include
labor force data; articles about the feminization of poverty;
materials about deviance and the social control of females;
information on the roles of upper class women, leading to a
critique of theories of the power elite and the governing class;
profiles of women as researchers; and critiques of methodological
schemes from feminist perspectives.
Even with the project formally at an end, efforts at curriculum
integration continue. Project staff worked during the summer of
1985 with graduate assistants teaching for the first time, and they
are providing materials generated by the project to other new
teachers as well. They are putting together a portfolio of
teaching/lesson techniques and projects for students which focus on
gender and sex roles. Seminars on incorporating the new scholarship
on women into basic courses have been scheduled for the summer and
fa]l of 1985 and the spring of 1986.
Contact Person:
Cornelia Butler Flora
Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work
Waters Hall
Kansas State University
Manhattan, Kansas 66506
*******
LEWIS AND CLARK COLLEGE
Portland, Oregon
Title:
Women's Studies Symposium: Focus on Science and Mathematics
Background:
Lewis and Clark College is a private, coeducational institution
with a College of Arts and Sciences, a Graduate School of
Professional Studies, and a School of Law. Approximately 1500
undergraduates are enrolled in twenty-four majors, fifteen minors,
and six interdisciplinary minors in the College of Arts and
Sciences. Lewis and Clark College has made an institutional
commitment to a curriculum that presents "a balanced exploration of
the perspectives, traditions and contributions of women and men."
(See attached Mission Statement.) A beginning point for this
commitment was a faculty seminar in the summer of 1981, sponsored
by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Seventeen faculty members, representing eleven academic
departments, participated in four weeks of intensive study with
visiting scholars in history, literature, and psychology. Shortly
thereafter, a Women's Issues Group was formed by female and male
faculty and administrators to address important issues such as the
need for a gender balanced curriculum. The group has also played a
major role in sponsoring annual women's studies symposia since
1981. At a retreat in the fall of 1981, the Lewis and Clark faculty
identified integration of women's studies into the curriculum as
the number one priority in a list of twenty-two curricular,
admissions, and personnel items to be considered in the mission
planning process. A gender studies interdisciplinary minor was
unanimously approved by the college curriculum committee, to
commence in the fall of 1985.
Within the past two years, the sciences and mathematics at Lewis
and Clark have been identified as areas with significant need for
curriculum integration. A Task Force on Gender Issues in the
Curriculum, established by the dean of faculty in 1983, made
recommendations for advising, educational climate, curriculum
integration and scholarship, with a special emphasis on mathematics
and the sciences. A Women in Math and Science Group--a support
group of faculty, administrators, and upperclass students--was
established to assist first- and second-year women who enter the
college with an interest in math and science; to improve academic
and career advising of these students; and to bring speakers and
programs to campus.
Goals:
Funds available through the Western States Project on Women in the
Curriculum enabled Lewis and Clark to further its general
institutional mission of gender-balancing the curriculum in
specific ways. A project was conceived that would address
curricular issues in math and science as well as present the
college's previous work to a larger audience. Specific goals of the
project were: (l) to introduce faculty to gender issues in science
and mathematics curricula, teaching, and advising; (2) to provide
a symposium with guest consultant/speaker, faculty, and student
papers on issues related to women and science, and (3) to provide
a dissemination conference that would include presentations and
discussion of the total Lewis and Clark effort toward integrating
gender across the curriculum.
Activities:
The 1985 Lewis and Clark Women's Studies Symposium provided the
opportunity to focus on integration of the scholarship on women in
the science and math curricula. A project coordinating committee
composed of faculty, administrators and students began meeting in
the fall of 1984. The project was directed by Jean Ward, Assistant
Dean of Faculty.
A call for papers and panels was sent to approximately one hundred
institutions, primarily within the Northwest region. Guest speakers
and curriculum consultants were selected by the committee and
included: Nancy Goddard, Associate Professor of Biology, Hampshire
College; Marian Lowe, Associate Professor of Chemistry, Boston
University; Sheila Tobias, author of Overcome Math Anxiety; and,
Ruth Rebekka Struik, Professor of Mathematics at the University of
Colorado at Boulder. The committee made arrangements for hand-outs,
including selected papers, syllabi, and bibliographies, to be
available at the symposium. Audio tapes of symposium presentations
were made available at cost. A copy of the four-day agenda for the
conference is attached.
In addition, project funds provided small stipends for selected
faculty to work on science and math course revision during the
summer of 1985. Revisions of introductory, general education, and
selected advanced courses in biology, chemistry, physics, computer
science, and mathematics are planned.
Results:
The project reached twenty-seven Lewis and Clark faculty in science
and mathematics, seventeen of whom are involved in course revision.
Under new college requirements, al] students will be affected by
revised curricula in these courses.
The coordinating committee conducted an evaluation of the 1985
symposium/dissemination conference; evaluation forms submitted by
symposium participants were uniformly positive. Of particular note
to outside participants was the overall quality of student
presentations on the panels. Participants also commented favorably
on the balance achieved at the symposium between questions of
theory and methodology and practical issues of pedagogy.
The results of the project will not be fully appreciated until the
course revisions have been implemented. This work is viewed as part
of an on-going and concentrated effort to integrate women's
scholarship into the science and math curricula at the college.
Contact Person:
Jean M. Ward
Assistant Dean of the Faculty and Professor of Communications
Office of the Dean of the Faculty
Lewis and Clark College
Portland, OR 97219
(503) 293-2654
LEWIS AND CLARK COLLEGE
EXCERPTS FROM THE STATEMENT OF MISSION
MISSION:
Lewis and Clark College is an independent academic community
committed to high standards of academic excellence in liberal arts
and professional education. The mission of Lewis and Clark is to
contribute to knowledge and understanding through teaching and
research; to participate actively in the public discussion of
local, regional, national and international issues; and to
strengthen in all members of its community those qualities which
enable them to develop rigorous and creative intellects, expand
their capacity for caring, enrich their personal lives, and enhance
their ability to serve and lead in society.
PHILOSOPHY:
Lewis and Clark draws strength and vision from its commitment to
the liberal and professional traditions and from the heritage of
openness to exploration and change inspired by its namesakes. At
the heart of the institution is the conviction that knowledge
itself is open and changing in its relation to personal action and
public affairs. Learning at Lewis and Clark thus requires
willingness to explore not one truth but the many truths, insights,
experiences, and perspectives which advance knowledge and
understanding. Lewis and Clark is particularly distinguished by its
commitment to intercultural and international understanding, to
balanced exploration of the perspectives, traditions and
contributions of women and men, an understanding of the role of
science in human and intellectual life, and to reflection upon the
ethical and moral dimensions of a diverse community in an
interdependent world.
Academic excellence at Lewis and Clark requires active
participation in a community of learning. The liberal arts College,
Graduate School and Law School are committed to high standards of
quality in teaching and scholarship, to intellectual rigor and
coherence in their curricula, and to academic freedom. To these
ends Lewis and Clark promotes a critical and creative exploration
of enduring question and values.
Approved by the Board of Trustees May 21, 1984
FOURTH ANNUAL WOMEN'S STUDIES SYMPOSIUM LEWIS AND CLARK COLLEGE
APRIL 16-19, 1985
Special Focus on Gender Issues in Math and Science
Funded in part by a grant from the Western States Project on Women
in the Curriculum
This symposium is dedicated to Michelle Rosaldo, anthropologist,
who died tragically in the Phillippines in the autumn of 1981. Ms.
Rosaldo was a Visiting Scholar in a 1981 summer faculty seminar on
Women's Studies at Lewis and Clark College.
MONDAY APRIL 15
Dinner hosted by the Lewis and Clark Women's Information Network,
6:00 p.m., Tamarack Lounge.
TUESDAY, APRIL 16
PANEL 1
WOMEN AND RELIGION
10:00 a.m. - 12:00, Rare Book Room, Aubrey Watzek Library
Sarah Jane Peterson, student, L&C, "Symbolism and Imagery of
God/dess: Changing Women's Identity" Deborah Budner, student,
Oberlin College, "'You Want to Do What?': The Changing Ritual as
Exemplified in the Creation of A Women's Haggadah" Frida Rerner
Furman, Lecturer in Religious Studies, L&C, "Recovering Women's
Experience in the Jewish Tradition" Moderator: Tom Collins, student
L&C
PANEL 2
CONTEMPORARY ISSUES
12:00 - 1:30 p.m., Rare Book Room, Aubrey Watzek Library
Debbie Hamber, student, L&C, "Geraldine Ferraro: An Historic
Campaign" Doug Johns, student, L&C, "NOW: Any Place for Men?"
Moderator: Greg Hamilton, student, L&C
PANEL 3
WORKING WOMEN
1:30 - 3:00 p.m., Rare Book Room, Aubrey Watzek Library
Katherine Helms Cummings, student, Oregon State University, "Help
Wanted Female: A Study of Women in the Workforce, 1920-1935" F.
Michael Kauffman, Business faculty, Linn-Benton Community College,
"Gender Role Model Stereotyping Remains in Management and
Supervisory Training Films and Texts" Moderator: Nadine Roland,
student, L&C
PRESENTATION WITH SLIDES
WOMEN AND ART
3:15 - 4:00 p.m., Tomlinson Room, Aubrey Watzek Library
Stewart Buettner Associate Professor and Chair, Art Department,
L&C, "Mother and Child: A Study of Psychologica; Distance in the
First True Feminist Subject in the European Tradition of Painting"
Moderator: Kathleen McLaughlin, Associate Professor of Religious
L&C
DOCUMENTARY FILM AND COMMENTARY
WOMEN OF STEEL WITH LINNY STOVALL
4:00 - 5:30 p.m., Tomlinson Room, Aubrey Watzek Library
This film documents the experience of women in the steel mills of
Western Pennsylvania's Mongahela Valley in the 1970's. Comment
provided by Linny Stovall, current]y director of the N.W. Media
Center, Portland, Oregon. Stovall worked for six years in the
Duquesne Works of U.S. Steel and was co-founder of the Mon Valley
Unemployed Committee.
Moderator Jim Wallace, Professor of Education and Director of the
Teacher Education Program, L&C
LECTURE
8:00 p.m., Council Chamber, Templeton College Center
Marian A. Lowe, Associate Professor of Chemistry, Boston
University, "Science and the Shaping of Gender Roles/Gender Roles
and the Shaping of Science" Moderators- Jean Ward, Professor of
Communications and Assistant Dean of the Faculty, L&C and Jennifer
Young, student, L&C
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17
PANEL 4
EDUCATION POLICY AND GENDER ISSUES
8:30 - 9:30 a.m., Thayer Rooms of Templeton College Center
Patricia Schmuck, Associate Professor of the Educational
Administration Program, L&C, and Mary Kay Tetreault, Assistant
Dean, Graduate School of Professional Studies, L&C, "Equity as an
Elective: An Analysis of Selected Educational Reform Reports and
Issues of Gender" Helen R. Wheeler, Visiting Lecturer, University
of California, Berkeley, and founder of Womanhood Media, "Education
of Japanese Females: 'Women's Studies' and Feminism Today"
Moderator: Jean Hannum, student, L&C
PANEL 5
SEX BIAS IN EDUCATION
9:30 - 11:00 a.m., Thayer Rooms of Templeton College Center
Student from the class in "Sex Bias in Education: Females as
Students and Teachers in Western World Countries" Moderator: Meg
O'Hara, Dean of Students, L&C
PANEL 6
GENDER AND RELATIONSHIPS
11:00 - 12:30 p.m., Thayer Rooms of Templeton College Center
Sarah L. Reynolds, student, L&C, "Gender Differences in the Meaning
of Commitment" Mike Lutz, student, L&C, "Strategy Behavior in
Romantic Relationships" Wendy Wells Hall, student, L&C, "Gender
Differences in Emblematic Usage" Daena Goldsmith, student, I&C,
"Autonomy and Affiliation in Romantic Relationships" Moderator:
Dick Adams, Associate Professor of Sociology, L&C
PANEL 7
WOMEN IN CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE
12:30 - 2:00 p.m., Thayer Rooms of Templeton College Center
Janelle Schmidt, student, L&C, "Women in Development" Rosemary
Ruhn, student, L&C, "Women in Kenya" Gracia Clark, Seattle,
Washington, U.N. Voluntary Fund for the Decade for Women, " 'Onions
Are My Husband': Autonomy and Responsibility as Choices for Asante
Market Women in Kumasi Central Market" Kim Riley, student, L&C,
"The Dominating Roles of Maori, Aboriginal, and American Indian
Women: A Comparative Study"
Moderator- Collette Young, student, L&C
PANEL 8
CHILDBIRTH AND MOTHERHOOD IN LITERATURE
2:00 - 3:00 p.m., Thayer Rooms, Templeton College Center
Loralee MacPike, Acting Dean, School of Humanities, California
State University, Northridge, "The Medicalization of Childbirth and
the Nineteenth-Century Novel" Katrina Reed, student, I&C,
"Questioning the Joys of Motherhood" Moderator- Chris Chopyak,
student, I&C
PANEL 9
INTEGRATING WOMEN'S STUDIES AT HERITAGE COLLEGE: CONCERN FOR
MINORITIES AND OLDER WOMEN STUDENTS
3:00 - 4:00 p.m., Thayer Rooms, Templeton College Center
Rose Arthur, MaryCarmen Cruz, and Diana Fairbanks, Heritage
College, Toppenish, Washington Moderator: Susan Kirschner, Lecturer
in English, L&C
PANEL 10
SCIENCE ANXIETY AND COMPETENCE
4:00 - 5:00 p.m., Thayer Rooms, Templeton College Center
Sharon Smock-Hoffman, Co-Director, Women's Center, Utah State
University, "Science Anxiety in Women and Ethnic Minorities" Diana
Fairbanks, Director of Media Resources, Heritage College, "Women's
Performance in Accounting Computer Application Learning" Kay
Sweetland Bower, Director, Women's Center, Oregon State University,
"Programs for Women in Science" Kareen Sturgeon, Assistant
Professor of Biology, Linfield College, "Opportunities for Women in
Science" Moderator: Glenn Meyer, Associate Professor of Psychology,
L&C
LECTURE
5:00 p.m., Council Chambers, Templeton College Center
Nancy L. Goddard, Associate Professor of Biology, Hampshire
College, Amherst, Massachusetts, "A Feminist Approach to Pedagogy
in Science: The Hampshire College Experience" Moderator: Janis
Lochner, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, L&C
Reception following in Templeton College Center sponsored by the
Lewis and Clark Women's Issues Group, Gina Bonner, Convener
DRAMATIC PRODUCTION
PRODIGAL DAUGHTERS BY DOROTHY VELASCO
8:00 p.m., Fir Acres Theatre, performed by Jane Van Boskirk and
Mark Nelson
A dramatic production featuring the lives of five immigrant women:
Marie Jakobson Bodtker; Mother Francesca Cabrini; Mary Harris Jones
(Mother Jones); Helen Modjeskai; and Goldy Goldstein.
Sponsored by the Oregon Arts Commission and the Oregon Committee
for the Humanities, an affiliate of the National Endowment for the
Humanities.
THURSDAY, APRIL 18
PANEL 11
"SILLY WOMEN NOVELISTS": WOMEN'S WRITING AND THE LITERARY CANON
1100-1800"
8:30 - 10:00 a.m., Thayer Rooms of Templeton College Center
Students from the class in "First Women Writers"
Carl T. Guess, student, L&C, "A-Hunting We Will Go: The Pursuit and
Discussion of Male Sexuality in the Lais of Marie de France" Julie
Silas, student, L&C, " 'This Creature' in Relation to Man: The Self
of Margery Kemp" Christine Chopyak, student, L&C, "Sexual Economics
in Two Plays by Aphra Behan and Susannah Centliure" Respondents:
Elizabeth Towill and Diana Rozelle, students, L&C Moderator: Jack
Hart, Associate Professor and Chair, English Department, L&C
PANEL 12
FEMINIST THEORY, LANGUAGE AND TEXTS
10:00 - 11:30 a.m., Thayer Rooms of Templeton College Center
Juliet Cole, graduate student, University of Washington,
"Wom(e/a)n, Science and Te(x/s)ts" Mika Ono, student, Reed College,
"Cixous's Ecriture Feminine: Feminine or Feminist" Katy Lloyd,
student, L&C, "Children's Matching Patterns Between Degrees of
Masculine Generic Language and Degrees of Masculine Imagery"
Moderator: Rim Barta, student, L&C
PANEL 13
WOMEN AND LITERATURE
11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m., Thayer Rooms, Templeton College Center
Carolyn Woodward, Instructor of Women's Studies, University of
Washington, "Sarah Fielding and Her Community of Critics: Woman as
Writer and Reader in Eighteenth-Century England" Susan Hallgarth,
Professor of English and Assistant to the Provost/Vice President
for Academic Affairs, Empire State College, Saratoga Springs, New
York, "Willa Cather and the Female Principle" Teresa Herlinger,
student, L&C, "Carson McCullers: A Two-Fold Quest for Identity"
Moderator: Dorothy Berkson, Assistant Professor of English, L&C
PANEL 14
GRASS SKIRTS AND LOIN CLOTHS: ISSUES IN INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S
HEALTH CARE
1:00 - 2:30 p.m., Thayer Rooms of Templeton College Center
Joan Carlton, student, L&C, "The Maternal and Child Health Care
System in Micronesia" Brunette, student, L&C, "Family Planning and
Fertility Control in Micronesia" Kim M. Heydon, student, 1&C,
"Aboriginal Health Today" Stacy R. Chamberlain, student, L&C, "A
Cross-Cultural Study of Attitudes Toward Menstruation and
Self-Esteem" Moderator: Dell Smith, Associate Professor of H&PE,
L&C
PANEL 15
LIFE HISTORY
2:30 - 4:00 p.m., Thayer Rooms of Templeton College Center
Gabrielle Brewer, student, L&C, "Mary Astell and Mary
Wollstonecraft: The Emergence of Educational Feminism in England"
Karin Deck, student, L&C, "Emmy Noether: An Innovator of Modern
Algebra" Kim Swanson, student, L&C, "Eva Emery Dye and the Romance
of Oregon History" Elaine Childs, L&C staff, "Ways of Seeing Mary
Baker Eddy: Vilifying, Mythologizing, Apologizing" Moderator: Grey
Osterud, Assistant Professor of History, L&C
PRESENTATION WITH SLIDES
4:00 - 5:00 p.m., Tomlinson Room, Aubrey Watzek Library
Polly Welts Kaufman, Coordinator of the Library Program, Boston
Public Schools, Boston, Massachusetts, and author of Women Teachers
on the Frontier, Yale University Press, 1983, "Women Teachers on
the Frontier" Moderator: Stephen D. Beckham, Professor of History,
L&C
DINNER FOR SYMPOSIUM PARTICIPANTS
6:00 p.m., Stamm Dining Room, Templeton College Center
LECTURE
8:00 p.m., Council Chamber of Templeton College Center
Marian A. Lowe, Associate Professor of Chemistry, Boston
University, "Women and Science: Expanding Our Horizons" Moderator:
Julie Sllas, student, L&C
FRIDAY, APRIL 19
PANEL 16
WOMEN AS PHYSICIANS AND CLIENTS
8:30 - 10:00 a.m., Thayer Rooms of Templeton College Center
Sally Markowitz, Professor of Philosophy, Willamette University,
"Abortion and Feminism" Suresht Bald, Professor of Political
Science, Willamette University, "Integrating Women in U.S. Funded
Activities: A Case Study of Rural Public Health Care in India"
Dorinda Welle, student, L&C, "Woman, Heal Thyself: Woman's
Struggles Toward Healing" Maureen McGuire, Assistant Professor, the
Oregon Health Sciences University, "The Woman Physician's
Credibility: Problems and Strategems" Moderator: Steve Seavey,
Associate Professor and Chair, Biology Department, L&C
PRESENTATION WITH SLIDES
10:00 - 11:30 a.m., Tomlinson Room, Aubrey Watzek Library Sponsored
by Women in Math and Science Group
Ruth Rebekka Struik, Professor of Mathematics, The University of
Colorado, Boulder, "Women Mathematicians" Moderator: Robyn Davis,
student, L&C
PANEL 17
CURRICULUM INTEGRATION: INSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVES
11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m., Thayer Rooms, Templeton College Center
Loralee MacPike, Acting Dean, School of Humanities, California
State University, Northridge Virginia Grant Darney, Director, The
Evergreen State College-Vancouver Betty Schmitz, Assistant Dean,
College of Letters and Sciences, Montana State University, and
Co-Director of the Western States Project on Women in the
Curriculum Marian A. Lowe, Associate Professor of Chemistry and
Former Director of the Women's Studies Program, Boston University
Carole Brown, Professor of English and Director of Graduate Liberal
Studies, Hamline University, St. Paul, Minnesota Moderator: Jean M.
Ward, Assistant Dean of the Faculty and Professor of Communications
PANEL 18
CURRICULUM INTEGRATION: CLASSROOM PERSPECTIVES
1:00 - 2:30 p.m., Thayer Rooms of Templeton College Center
Stephen F. Wolfe, Assistant Professor of English, Linfield College,
"Collaboration in the Classroom: Feminism and the Teaching of
Writing" Madonne M. Miner, Assistant Professor of English,
University of Wyoming, "'Another Woman's Play? Doesn't That Make
Like Number Six?"' Robyn Weigman, graduate student, University of
Washington, "The Whiteness of Whiteness: Breaking the Taboo--The
Study of Black Literature and White Feminism" Moderator: Steve
Knox, Professor of English, L&C
LECTURE
2:30 - 4:00 p.m., Thayer Rooms of Templeton College Center
Sheila Tobias, author of Overcoming Math Anxiety, "The Politics of
Teaching Difficult Subjects" Moderator: William Rottschaefer,
Associate Professor and Chair, Philosophy Department, L&C
WORKSHOP MATH AVOIDANCE
4:15 - 5:45 p.m., Tomlinson Room, Aubrey Watzek Library
Madeline Moore, Director of NW EQUALS, Oregon Museum of Science and
Industry Northwest EQUALS is one of six sites established by
EQUALS, Lawrence Hall of Science, Berkeley, through a Carnegie
Foundation grant. The goal of EQUALS is to help teachers promote
math and science among female and minority students. The workshop
will emphasize a hands-on approach to mathematics and will call for
participation by those attending. The workshop will include:
Startling Statements regarding math and science as prerequisites
for careers; Spatial Visualization Activities; Cooperative Logic
and Problem Solving; and a Family Math Film. Moderator: Annis
Bleeke, Acting Director, Math Skills Center, L&C
LECTURE
8:00 p.m., Council Chamber of Templeton College Center
Sheila Tobias, author of Overcoming Math Anxiety, "Women and Math:
Phase III" Moderators: Roger Nelsen, Professor and Chair,
Mathematics Department, L&C, and Justine Miani, student, L&C
Reception following in Templeton College Center sponsored by the
Symposium Committee
CHILD CARE will be provided for children 6 months to 12 years of
age during the following hours: Tuesday through Friday, April
16-19, 3:45 p.m. to 6:15 p.m. and 7:45 p.m. to 10:15 p.m.
Reservations are necessary for child care. Call the Templeton
College Center Information Desk, 244-6161, ext. 576, for childcare
reservations.
ALL SYMPOSIUM EVENTS ARE FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Donations will be accepted and appreciated for the Fifteenth
Anniversary Year of the Feminist Press, New York.
For additional information contact:
Jean M. Ward
Assistant Dean of the Faculty Office of the Dean of the Faculty
Lewis and Clark College
Portland, OR 97219
Phone: (503) 244-6161, ext. 6630
*******
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA
Omaha, Nebraska
Project Title:
Humanities Curriculum Enhancement for the University of Nebraska at
Omaha
Background:
The University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) is the urban campus of
the University of Nebraska System, which includes the University of
Nebraska Medical Center, also located in Omaha, and the University
of Nebraska at Lincoln. The university has six college
constituents: Arts and Sciences, Fine Arts, Public Affairs and
Community Service, Business, Education, and Continuing Studies. In
addition, a School of Social Work and programs in home economics
and engineering are attached to the University of Nebraska at
Lincoln.
UNO is a nonresidential campus, drawing the vast majority of its
15,000 diverse, full- and part-time students from a metropolitan
area of about 600,000 people. The average age of students is
somewhat over twenty-six years; and because virtually all the black
population of Nebraska resides in Omaha, UNO attracts relatively
large numbers of black students compared to other institutions of
higher education in the state. Slightly over half the student body
is female, and many of the women have postponed their educational
aspirations as they performed tasks in "traditional" households.
They are, as a group, probably the most motivated and successful
students in the university.
When the project was proposed, the time was overdue for revision of
the syllabus for the two-semester humanities course, one of the
most popular means of fulfilling the humanities requirement in the
College of Arts and Sciences. The impetus for revision arose from
the recognition that too few minority views were represented in the
course. Because one course simply could not undo all misconceptions
about all minorities, a decision was made to focus on a group
which, although not in a strict sense a minority, crossed all
subdivisions of society; which constituted a majority of the
university's student enrollment; and which was sorely
underrepresented in the picture of western culture that the course
had attempted to provide. In short, it was decided that the course
should focus on women.
Goals:
The immediate goal of the project was the incorporation of women's
studies into the curriculum of the interdisciplinary humanities
course. The greater objective was to foster understanding and
appreciation of the contributions of women to the arts and to
western thought, and to compensate for the patriarchal assumptions
and biases built into the traditional understanding of those
contributions.
Activities:
The project was initiated by Martha (Missy) Dehn Kubitschek,
Assistant Professor of English, who has primary responsibility for
teaching courses in women's literature, and directed by Harvey
Leavitt, Associate Professor of English and Coordinator of
Humanities 101-102. Despite the fact that the project was funded
for one year, the activities encompass two years. Activities in the
first year included four symposia in the major disciplinary areas
included in the course: literature, philosophy, art, music, drama,
and religion. The presentations were made by persons who have had
major roles as lecturers in the humanities course and whose newly
acquired expertise will be incorporated into the lectures in the
future. It was hoped that the audience at these events would
include all twenty faculty who offer lectures in the humanities
course. In practice, however, the symposia attracted some members
of humanities disciplines but too few of the other lecturers whom
project leaders sought to sensitize to women's issues.
In addition, the project director worked to revise the introductory
lectures for the course so that they will now provide a more
balanced view of history and a recognition of women's
contributions. The university library has excellent holdings in art
and music reflecting women's contributions, and the holdings in
literature are good as well; those in philosophy and religion are
being increased. To the departments' holdings are being added art
slides and recorded music that reflect women's achievements.
The processes of education and research took place during the
academic year of 1984-85, and the implementation phase began in the
summer of 1985, to continue into the academic year of 1985-86.
Beginning in 1985, three lectures devoted specifically to women
will be added to the course, and thirty-two percent of the
remaining lectures will be revised for a more balanced gender
treatment. Continued refinement and transfiguration of the course
will continue into the future.
Results:
In addition to the modifications in the humanities sequence, the
project had broader effects as well. The invitations and publicity
surrounding the symposia resulted in consciousness-raising that
created additional sympathy for women's studies. Representatives
from the offices of the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and
the Chancellor attended the events. And the ad hoc committee for
women's studies seemed to gather momentum, so that it now has a
draft proposal for a women's studies minor circulating on the
campus. Although this project cannot be said to have directly
sponsored such activity, its existence helped to improve the
climate and induce enthusiasm in those who have sought to create a
women's studies minor. Finally, believing that the textbook
industry is, in many ways, the legitimizing agent for women's
studies, the project director has communicated with publishers of
texts used in the course, advising them of ways in which women need
to be incorporated into their texts.
Contact Person:
Harvey R. Leavitt
Associate Professor of English
Coordinator, Humanities Program
CBA 308G
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Omaha, Nebraska 68106
*******
UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Project Title:
Into the Mainstream: Locating and Using the New Research on Women
Background:
The University of New Mexico, a state university enrolling nearly
25,000 students, slightly over half of them women, has a well-
established Women Studies Program. In the spring of 1984, the
Acting Director of Women Studies and an Associate Dean of the
College of Arts and Sciences organized a faculty discussion group
focused on the feasibility of a feminist curriculum integration
project at UNM. Members of the group circulated a questionnaire,
the results of which demonstrated widespread and active interest in
"mainstreaming" and identified bibliographic help as the kind of
specific encouragement faculty members deemed potentially most
useful.
Goals:
The project was designed to meet the faculty's perceived need for
library computer assistance in mainstreaming feminist education. It
aimed to increase the academic reputation of women studies on
campus and also to improve educational quality and equity
throughout the university. Specific goals were (l) to help raise
the awareness of faculty members of the quality of scholarship on
women; (2) to help make that scholarship available to them; (3) to
increase their awareness of library resources on women and to
increase library resources through the creation of new
bibliographies and the purchase of materials requested by project
participants; and (4) to encourage the revision of a broad
cross-section of courses, both introductory lecture courses and
upper division courses.
In August 1984, faculty were recruited via letters, the student
newspaper, and personal contacts. Twenty-five participants were
selected. At the first workshop, held on September 20, they
received individualized packets of materials, including
bibliographies and review articles in appropriate fields. Tey Diana
Rebolledo, Director of Women Studies, discussed the importance of
integrating women's materials, and Linda Lewis, Humanities
Coordinator of the UNM General Library, introduced the library's
computer procedures.
170 At a second work shop at the beginning of November, held twice
to accommodate teaching schedules, Linda Lewis and other librarians
demonstrated the computer search process. In addition, Susan Hardy
Aiken of the NEH Curriculum Integration Project at the University
of Arizona presented integration strategies, using sample syllabi
from courses at various stages of integration. Aiken also addressed
participants at a luncheon hosted by the project, focusing on the
transformation teachers and students experience through the
integrative process.
From November 1984 to February 1985, participants conducted
computer searches and read selections, and at the end of February
they met in a third workshop, also repeated to accommodate teaching
schedules. Here they turned in annotated bibliographies, shared
high- lights of their readings, and discussed strategies for
integrating syllabi, due on June 1. In May, project leaders held a
party for the workshop participants.
Results:
Despite some attrition, the project was a success, accomplishing
all goals, though on a scale somewhat smaller than initially hoped
for. Of the original twenty-five participants, fourteen have
completed their annotated bibliographies and revised syllabi and
another seven people who have completed some assignments will
probably turn in the remainder.
In evaluating the project, participants rated their knowledge of
feminist scholarship in their fields as an average of 2.5 on a
S-point scale at the beginning of the project and 3.7 at its end,
recognizing that, as one male sociologist put it, there was "much
more to learn." Sixteen courses, ranging from introductory freshman
lectures to graduate-level seminars, have been revised; and faculty
believe that students will benefit much from these revisions: 4.4
on a 5-point scale. The item on the evaluation asking for a
recommendation to continue with similar projects rated 4.3.
Encouraged by these results, project leaders would like to offer a
continuing series of curriculum integration programs, focused on
specific disciplines and/or departments, pending internal funding.
Contact Person:
Helen M. Bannan
Associate Director, Women Studies Program
University of New Mexico
Mesa Vista 2142
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131
UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO
TOPICS OF COMPUTERIZED BIBLIOGRAPHIES
*American Women Writers Before 1860 (Bill Baurecht)
*Catholic Women (Pat McNamara)
*Effects of Maternal Employment (Ann Nihlen)
Epidemiology of Women's Health (Sandra Schwanberg)
*Gender Differences in Cognition (Mary Harris)
*Gender Differences in Social Behavior (Dick Harris)
*Hispanic Women (Pat McNamara)
*Marriage and Family Relationships (Jim Ponzetti)
*Nutrition and the Female Life Cycle (Kathy Koahler)
*Roles of Women in Agriculture/Farming (Susan Place)
Sex Role Socialization in Public Schools (Dave Bachelor)
*Sex Roles and Mass Media (Paul Traudt)
Social, Economic, and Political Status of Women in Latin America
(Susan Tiano)
*Socialization of Women Into Administration (Carolyn Wood)
*Women in Leadership (Liz Stefanics)
*Women in Management (Helen Muller)
*Women in the Middle Ages (Helen Damico)
*Women in Migration and Population Change (Elinore Barrett)
*Women in the Twentieth-Century American West (Dick Etulain)
172 Women, Myth, and Madness in American Literature (Diana
Rebolledo)
*Women on Indian Reservations in the Trans-Mississippi West (Helen
Bannan)
*copy on file in Women Studies Program
*******
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA
Grand Forks, North Dakota
Project Title:
Is lt 40 Below for Female Students at UND?
Background:
The University of North Dakota enrolls 10,500 students in under-
graduate and graduate programs, the School of Medicine, and the
School of Law. It is a state-supported institution serving North
Dakota, Minnesota, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Manitoba
students. Women students are approximately 49% of the enrollment,
and women faculty members approximately 24%. About 2% of the
student body is Native American; there is an Indian studies program
and a women studies pro- gram. In 1981, the University of North
Dakota completed a project that integrated the new scholarship on
women into the traditional curriculum. The projeCt resulted in
course revisions in a number of academic areas and in the
publication of Women's Scholarship: A Curriculum Handbook, a
collection of essays by faculty participants. To further these
efforts, the women studies program sought funding from the Western
States Project to develop a new project to improve the classroom
climate for women students.
Experiences recounted by students, teachers' observations of their
own behavior, and expressions of concern by the Vice-President for
Academic Affairs about the campus climate all contributed to the
belief that attention to this issue was needed at the university.
Corroborating this conviction was the Association of American
Colleges' report, "The Classroom Climate: A Chilly One for Women?"
by Roberta Hall and Bernice Sandler, published by the Project on
the Status and Education of Women.
Goals:
Defining "curriculum" as not only what students learn, but also how
they learn or are impeded from learning, the UND Classroom Climate
Project had the following goals:
1. to inform UND faculty of recent scholarship on the subject of
classroom climate for women students; 2. to examine the climate at
UND and explore ways to improve that climate;
3. to develop teams of faculty members to help each other with
changing their teaching methods and behavior;
4. to produce and perform "Ice Follies," a play and videotape
designed to make visible, in a non-threatening and animated
fashion, the chilling effects of sexism, racism, and class bias in
the classroom and to elicit ideas about ways of changing those
effects.
Activities:
Sexism, racism and class prejudice are often invisible and unspoken
components of hierarchical social relations which get constructed,
often unconsciously, in classrooms. Project activities were
designed to dismantle these hierarchies by dramatizing them, then
offering them for public scrutiny and open discussion. With the
help of on-campus consultants from the Center for Teaching and
Learning, the College of Nursing, the theatre arts, English,
biology, and humanities departments, and an off-campus consultant
in feminist pedagogy and women studies research, the project
explored the classroom climate for women students. The intent was
not to sentimentalize women as helpless victims of a pernicious and
melodramatic conspiracy, but to theatricalize the possibilities for
teaching and learning about women. The year-long program of
activities included the examination of classroom practices at UND,
presentations on feminist pedagogy, a survey of classroom
techniques in use, development and performances of the script and
video- tape on classroom climate, a report on these activities to
all faculty, and continued discussions of the tape and reports. The
project was directed by Sandra Donaldson, Associate Professor of
English, with assistance from the Office of Instructional
Development.
The project began with a two-day workshop on feminist pedagogy and
scholarship by Marilyn Schuster of Smith College. Faculty members
then volunteered to work together in peer observation groups to
Critique each other's classroom behaviors. In the second semester,
all faculty were surveyed for their individual practices in
creating a climate conducive to learning. These responses were
gathered into a report and distributed to all faculty, staff, and
administrators.
Concurrently, a script on classroom climate was developed by a
member of the creative writing faculty in cooperation with other
faculty and students and using the report prepared by the Project
on the Status and Education of Women. The first performance of the
play, entitled "Ice Follies," was held in conjunction with an
interdisciplinary conference on campus, and the troupe travelled
for performances at other colleges and universities. The script was
also videotaped. Showings, rental, and sale of the script and tape
are being arranged.
175 An original project plan of paying faculty stipends for writing
research papers on the subject of classroom climate was modified
because few people felt comfortable with this approach to a
sensitive subject. Instead, discussions and workshops about sexual
harassment and the staging of the play were chosen as effective
ways of dealing with the topic. Employing writers, performers,
directors, and others to work on the project validated the
seriousness of the subject and helped to create a professional
product.
Results
One of the products of the project is a 31-minute videotape,
"Classroom Follies," that presents classroom and office scenes of
both blatant and subtle sexual harassment. Besides making the
problem visible to faculty, staff, and students, the tape is meant
to give students and their supporters language to protest against
harassment. The tape provides no single answer for dealing with the
problem and, at the end, the audience is invited to discuss the
issues and explore local resources for change. Because this subject
elicits powerful feelings, a condition of the showing of the tape
or performance of the script is that it be accompanied by a
discussion led by an informed person. A facilitator's guide to the
videotape is currently being prepared.
Contact Person
Sandra Donaldson
Department of English
Box 8237
University of North Dakota
Grand Forks, ND 58202
*******
REGIS COLLEGE
Denver, Colorado
Project Title:
Teaching Women: A Faculty Development Project To Integrate Women
into the Core Curriculum
Background:
Regis College is a four-year Jesuit institution with an enrollment
in its traditional undergraduate program of approximately 1000
students, most of whom are eighteen to twenty-two years old. About
half of these students are women. The current list of full-time
faculty includes seventy men and twenty-five women. All students
are required to complete a core curriculum, including courses in
religious studies, philosophy, social science, mathematics, natural
science, written and spoken communication, and literature and the
humanities.
Regis has no women's studies program, though several efforts have
been made in that direction. A small but committed group of faculty
are actively concerned with women's issues in their teaching. This
group designed and implemented the project through the auspices of
the Faculty Development Committee, with the intention of complying
with the mandate of the Educational Policies Committee, the major
curricular and policy- making body of the college, that all core
courses be re-examined for both content and rationale.
Goals
The project, a Fall Faculty Conference on "Teaching Women," was
meant to serve as a keynote to a year's coordinated efforts to
integrate the new scholarship on women into the core curriculum of
the college. Its goals were to get faculty to incorporate more
feminist scholarship into their courses, to increase the feminist
consciousness of the college as a whole, and to reach all students
with some aspect of women's studies.
Activities:
The project was directed by Alice Reich, Assistant Dean for
Faculty, assisted by a group of committed faculty members. The Fall
Faculty Conference, a long-standing tradition strongly supported by
both faculty and administration, sets the theme for various
activities in the upcoming academic year. This conference,
"Teaching Women," was a one- day event with a keynote speaker, Jean
Owens Schaefer of the University of Wyoming, and four workshops.
Each faculty member who attended received an individualized packet
of materials, including bibliographies and teaching suggestions
specific to her or his academic discipline.
Activities subsequent to the conference included a brown-bag
discussion by a faculty member who had attended an NEH summer
seminar on women and literature; a grant-writing workshop; and a
mini-series within the Regis film series on "Women and Film."
Faculty who had attended the conference received a follow-up
memorandum in the fall semester and a follow-up questionnaire in
the spring semester.
Results:
The results of the project are difficult to gauge. The immediate
response to the conference was extremely positive. In addition to
giving favorable, even excited, evaluations, faculty requested
individual consultations, copies of the keynote address, and the
like.
The raised consciousness was evident in many arenas. Women faculty
felt validated and spoke more easily about feminist issues; men
faculty were ~,ore apt to catch and censor their own sexism.
Real change is, however, more elusive. A survey of course syllabi
showed little or no change, either in the use of books by or about
women, or in the frequency with which courses dealt specifically
with women's issues. And the final questionnaire, returned by only
15 faculty, showed that the major change people saw in themselves
centered around their attitudes towards teaching women students,
though several made very positive statements about changes in
course content as well. Still striking a positive note, the library
director stated, "It [the project] raised to priority ordering an
entire range of publications in women's studies."
Contact Person:
Alice Reich
Assistant Dean for Faculty
Regis College
West 50th and Lowell Boulevard
Denver, Colorado 80221
*******
COLLEGE OF SAINT MARY
Omaha, Nebraska
Project Title:
Re-claiming Our Heritage: Women's Studies at CSM
Background:
Historically, College of Saint Mary (CSM), a private liberal arts
college of 1,000 students, has been a college for women, and
although men are now admitted into many programs, the college
states its mission as being "primarily for women." The impetus for
undertaking a curriculum integration project was the realization
that the curriculum of the college should express this mission.
Specifically, at the time the project was proposed, (l) the college
had come to see its identity as a women's college as a marketable
asset; (2) the Acting President and the Vice President for Academic
Affairs supported the examination of the curriculum in the light of
the college's mission; (3) the Director of the Library viewed the
development of a special collection in women's studies as an
appropriate activity for the college; and (4) the faculty were open
to curricular change, and several faculty members were interested
in women's studies.
Goals:
The goals of the project were, first, to increase the whole college
faculty's awareness and knowledge of the new scholarship in women's
and ethnic studies; and, second, to support individual faculty
members in their efforts to incorporate that knowledge into their
course syllabi, with special emphasis on courses offered for
general education credit.
The project was directed by Elizabeth Y. Mulliken, Associate Dean
of the College and Director of Faculty Development, assisted by
Susan Severin, Director of Instructional Resources. The first
series of project activities was designed to increase the general
level of faculty awareness and knowledge of women's and ethnic
studies. The regular all- college faculty in-service day required
of all full-time faculty, October 16, 1984, was devoted to women's
and ethnic studies. Johnnella E. Butler, Chair of the Department of
Afro-American Studies at Smith College, presented a workshop based
on the FIPSE-funded project "Black Studies/Women's Studies: An
Overdue Partnership," in which she emphasized the multicultural,
interdisciplinary nature of women's studies. At this workshop, each
faculty member received a packet of materials including general
articles on women's studies, a selected bibliography of CSM library
holdings in women's studies, and a review bibliography from Signs
or another source specific to that faculty member's discipline. The
in-service day concluded with a wine-and-cheese party in the
library, where books, periodicals, and audio-visual materials in
women's and ethnic studies were on display.
After this program, faculty expressed the need for more time to
discuss and learn about this new material, so additional activities
were added. An informal follow-up discussion on Butler's workshop
was held on November 8. Groups of faculty attended the symposia on
women's studies sponsored by the Western States Project at the
University of Nebraska at Omaha. And a second all-college faculty
in-service workshop took place on January 18, 1985.
At this second workshop, Patricia MacCorquodale of the Department
of Sociology, University of Arizona, presented "The Practice of
Curriculum Integration: Putting Theory to Work." Her presentation
was accompanied by handouts of sample syllabi and exercises for
classroom use. She also met individually with faculty members
working on particular courses.
The second goal of the project, to support individual faculty
members' work on curriculum integration, was met through a
competitive small grants process. Faculty were encouraged to apply
for up to $250 in support for conference attendance, use of
consultants, purchase of materials, or other means of enabling them
to develop syllabi.
Results:
Practically all CSM full-time faculty, and many administrators and
percentage faculty, attended one or more of the project activities
and received materials related to women's studies in the
curriculum. Evaluations indicated strong interest in the speakers
and materials presented, as well as some occasional resistance to
them. To listen is not necessarily to hear, nor does receiving
materials guarantee that they will be used, so it was expected that
the larger impact of the project would need to be re-evaluated
during the following semester, in the fall of 1985.
Approximately $500 of grant funds were expended on library mate-
rials on women's studies and curriculum integration. These
materials will provide invaluable resources for faculty as they
continue integrative work on their own.
Four faculty members received small grants and prepared revised
syllabi. The courses affected are Introduction to Sociology,
Philosophers on Women, Introduction to Business, and the Thematic
Seminar (a general education requirement for all junior students).
All these courses will be taught in 1985-86 by these faculty
members. Although the degree of transformation of the syllabi
varies, some genuine change has taken place in all of them.
Contact Person:
Elizabeth Y. Mulliken
College of Saint Mary
1901 South 72nd Street
Omaha, Nebraska 68124
*******
TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
College Station, Texas
Project Title:
The Texas A&M Curricular Integration Project
Background:
Texas A&M University, a land-grant college founded in 1876, was
open only to males for nearly one hundred years, and military
training was compulsory. Women were admitted to degree-granting
programs when participation in the Corps of Cadets became
voluntary, in 1965. At that time the total student enrollment was
less than 10,000.
The university now enrolls more than 36,000 students, one-sixth of
them at the graduate level. More than half the advanced degrees
conferred by A~M have been awarded in the last decade. Today, only
slightly more freshmen are male (2850 admitted in 1984) than female
(2354 admitted). The number of female faculty, although small, is
increasing. Diversity in every regard is encouraged. At present,
students come from every state and from 123 foreign countries.
In such a period of dramatic change and growth, direction is
welcomed, and numerous documents have been produced within the
institution, recognizing and encouraging its potential to become a
"world class" university. Yet with such a recent history of
exclusive focus on the male, students, faculty, and administrators
recognize that not all areas have moved forward at the same pace,
and they are receptive to efforts that promote the perspectives of
poorly represented groups, notably women and minorities.
Goals:
To expand the availability of information about women beyond those
courses strictly recognized as women's studies, the project was
designed to provide faculty who teach large survey courses with
resources on women that could be incorporated into existing
academic programs. Thus, the primary goal was to integrate
materials on minority and majority women into the core curriculum.
A secondary goal was to increase the visibility and legitimacy of
women's studies at Texas A&M.
Finally, the project was to provide the mechanism, as well as the
auspices, for identifying faculty with research as well as teaching
interests in women's studies.
Activities:
Implementation of these goals required the service of the core
Women's Studies Group, faculty who currently teach the four women's
studies courses in the College of Liberal Arts. In addition to the
project director, Elizabeth Maret of the Department of Sociology,
two other women, Charlotte Muehlenhard of the Department of
Psychology and Harriette Andreadis of the Department of English,
were recruited to act as project agents within their own
disciplines. (The fourth women's studies area, history, was not
well represented because that core faculty member could not serve
as a project agent during the period of the project.) In addition
to the core Women's Studies Group, two outside consultants from the
Southwest Institute for Research on Women were asked to help plan
and implement the general and discipline-specific faculty
development seminars. The first consultant, Judy Lensink, conducted
a workshop for the A&M group in December 1984, to assist in the
design of the spring faculty development seminars. The second,
Patricia MacCorquodale, addressed the general faculty development
seminar on "The New Scholarship on Women" in February 1985. After
this general seminar, discipline-specific seminars were conducted
in March through April. Each discipline-specific group, in English,
psychology, and sociology, met three times, for a total of
approximately six hours.
Results:
Results of these faculty development seminars included (l)
introduction of the necessity for and the principles and techniques
of curriculum integration to a group of 23 faculty, including the
dean of the college; (2) compilation, discussion, and dissemination
of bibliographic materials on the new women's scholarship; and (3)
expansion of the network of the Women's Studies Group and the
development of an awareness of the presence of a women's studies
faculty. In the sociology and psychology departments,
bibliographies and collected articles will become a permanent part
of departmental resources. In the English department, a group of
faculty now meets regularly and informally to discuss issues in
feminist literary scholarship. And in the College of Liberal Arts
as a whole, a Task Force for Women's Studies has been formed to
discuss and implement a proposal for a women's studies program.
Contact Person:
Elizabeth Maret
Department of Sociology
Texas A&M University
College Station, Texas 77843
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UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
Arlington, Texas
Project Title:
Women's History and the United States Survey: A Faculty Development
Project To Integrate Women's Studies Into the Curriculum
Background:
The University of Texas at Arlington, one of several campuses in
the UT system, is a commuter school located halfway between Dallas
and Fort Worth. Slightly fewer than half (43 percent) of the
23,000 students are female. UTA has had a Center for Women's
Studies for more than a decade, and five years ago the center
merited a course release for the director, funds for a work-study
student, an office, and a telephone. Recently, that institutional
support has eroded, and for the last two years the center has
functioned with only an advisory board, which developed the project
in cooperation with the history department. Because all students
are required to take six hours of United States history, and
virtually all enroll in the United States history survey, any
change in the United States history curriculum could potentially
touch every undergraduate.
Goals:
Through a one-day colloquium entitled "Women's History and the
United States Survey: A Faculty Development Project To Integrate
Women's Studies Into the Curriculum," the project aimed to close
the gap between the work of feminist scholars and the classroom
experience. As a result of the colloquium, planners hoped, women's
experience would play an increasingly important part in history
surveys. Hundreds of undergraduates would thus be exposed to the
new scholarship through the work of individual faculty members.
Activities:
The project was directed by Sheila Collins of the Graduate School
of Social Work and implemented by Kathleen Underwood of the
Department of History. In the spring of 1984, Stanley H. Palmer,
chairman of the history department, asked faculty to respond to a
needs assessment questionnaire, the results of which helped to
shape the colloquium. The colloquium itself, held early in the fall
1984 semester, when enthusiasm for course development was high, was
led by David Katzman of the University of Kansas. Dr. Katzman
helped create the guidance materials entitled "Restoring Women to
History" for the Organization of American Historians (OAH), and
each of the faculty received a set of these mate- rials. Activities
included an address by Dr. Katzman and a teaching workshop, as well
as opportunities for informal discussion during a coffee break, a
luncheon, and a cocktail party hosted by the project.
Results:
Measuring results is troublesome. Ten faculty participated in all
or part of the day's activities; another five received the OAH
mate- rials. In a post-colloquium evaluation, most responded
favorably, indicating that they found the lecture, discussion, and
initial contact with the OAH materials "useful" or "very useful."
A second evaluation, carried out eight months later, at the end of
the spring 1985 semester, revealed that many are "borrowing freely"
from the OAH materials to augment their lectures. Faculty also
believe the colloquium will have what one termed "a long-range
impact" on the content of survey courses. More tangible results are
not forthcoming; no one made any changes in text adoptions for
either the spring or fall 1985 semester.
Contact Person:
Kathleen Underwood
Department of History
The University of Texas at Arlington
Arlington, Texas 76019
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UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
El Paso, Texas
Project Title:
English, History, and Political Science: Targets for Integration in
the First Year
Background:
The University of Texas at El Paso enrolls over 15,000 students, 49
percent of whom are female and 48% of whom are Hispanic. The
university requires all its students to enroll in freshman
composition, American history, and political science during their
first year; and all faculty in the English, history, and political
science departments must teach at least one introductory course
each semester.
The Women's Studies Program, in operation since 1981, offers up to
a half dozen elective courses each semester. In the interests both
of reaching a large number of students and of developing faculty
capability to integrate scholarship on women, members of the
Women's Studies Advisory Committee decided to embark upon
curriculum integration efforts. Although early efforts produced few
lasting results, faculty continued to demonstrate interest and the
administration was supportive of a new venture.
Goals:
The goal of the project was to recruit faculty who taught
introductory courses in the English, history, and political science
departments for a two-day workshop, at which outside experts in the
foregoing fields would discuss theoretical and applied perspectives
in women's studies. Armed with a packet of resources associated
with the workshop and their workshop involvement, faculty would
then revise syllabi by the fall of 1985. For this effort, they
received a $100 honorarium, which they could designate for their
departmental gift funds if they preferred. Kathleen Staudt,
Associate Professor of Political Science and coordinator of the
Women's Studies Program in 1984-85, directed the project.
Activities began in the fall of 1984, when the workshop was
announced in the "Women's Studies Newsletter"; institutional funds
were sought to meet various expenses associated with the workshop;
Women's Studies Advisory Committee members conceptualized the
workshop schedule; and outside experts were recruited for the
workshop. In October, memos were sent to the targeted faculty,
followed by personal lobbying after the initial mailing filled only
two thirds of the available spaces. In November and December,
"entrance interviews" were conducted with participants, a dialogue
that prompted a number of faculty to ponder issues of course
content and process that they had never considered before. Workshop
announcements were also sent to other relevant faculty and staff,
including a faculty member from El Paso Community College and a
writer and photographer from the university news service.
The workshop, held in January 1985, just before the beginning of
the spring semester, featured one day devoted to feminist
perspectives in the disciplines and cross-cultural/Hispanic women's
issues. The next day's meetings focused on applications, with
presentations on "classroom climate" issues and small-group
sessions on syllabus revision. The outside experts--Lois Banner of
the Department of History at the University of Southern California,
Gary Sue Goodman of the Writing Program at the University of
California at Los Angeles, and Jane Jaquette of the Department of
Political Science at Occidental College-- offered fine
presentations and small-group facilitation. They had been given
copies of each participant's syllabus and responses to the entrance
interview questions. Faculty participants spent the spring and
summer of 1985 revising syllabi for their fall classes.
Results:
A total of twenty-three faculty members participated fully in the
workshop, although at some sessions the room was filled to its
capacity of forty. Of the formal participants, almost two-thirds
were male, and approximately half, tenured. An anticipated 4,000
students will be reached in the first year alone. It is important,
however, to stress the different degrees to which students will
probably be reached. The "exit interviews" conducted in the spring
of 1985 suggest that some faculty may only add a reading or two,
whereas others are revising syllabi in a more integral way and
reconsidering their teaching methodology. Project leaders evaluated
the extent of integration in the fall of 1985 through examining
syllabi and testing instruments and interviewing faculty and
students. The exit interviews showed that no one failed to be
touched by the workshop in some way.
On a more qualitative level, the intellectual stimulation provided
by the outside experts' presentations increased the credibility of
feminist scholarship; the workshop emphases legitimized dormant
concerns of some faculty, such as language/gender issues; and
perceptions of
194 women's studies were no longer arrested at the late 1960's
level among many faculty. Also as a result of the workshop, the
guest participant from El Paso Community College is working toward
establishing a women's studies program and a similar workshop on
her campus.
Contact Person:
Kathleen Staudt
Department of Political Science
University of Texas at El Paso
El Paso, Texas 79968
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UNIVERSITY OF UTAH
Salt Lake City, Utah
Project Title:
Gender Balance in the Curriculum and Teaching of Required Writing
Courses
Background:
The context for a curriculum integration project at the University
of Utah was a new, university-wide writing program, funded in its
initial phases by an NEH "excellence in a field" grant and designed
to provide writing instruction for all undergraduates in both
introductory and writing-intensive courses. The program director,
Susan Miller, includes among her priorities a concern for training
writing instructors to ensure that they are aware of gender issues
in discourse and to equip them with methods for gender balance in
the content and conduct of their classes. Since many of the
instructors in the program are teaching for the first time, as well
as preparing for careers in college teaching, it is valuable to
provide them at this point with information on gender balance; it
is equally valuable for students to experience gender- balanced
instruction early in their college work.
The project presented an opportunity to integrate considerations of
gender balance into the development of a new, important, and large
program. The project enjoyed the support of the English department
and the Women's Studies Program.
Specific goals were formulated for the project: (l) to devise
training methods and materials about gender balance for writing
teachers; (2) to provide training for a first group of teachers;
(3) to create a body of materials for regular future use in
training and orientation work with new instructors; (4) to
accumulate expertise and resources capable of being used as models
for university writing pro- grams elsewhere.
The project was directed by Ann Parsons, Assistant Professor of
English, and advised by Susan Miller, director of the university
writing program. The plan of action to meet project goals was to
prepare and offer three major activities and three kinds of
materials.
Activity comprised two two-hour colloquia, held in February 1985,
as part of the regular weekly quarter-long series for writing
teachers. The series included the following: a lecture on recent
research in major aspects of women and language (for example,
sexism and gender stereo- typing in language, women's language,
inadequacy of language to express women's experience, work for
change); definition of gender balance in academic courses;
discussion and illustration of the practical need for gender
balance; "classroom climate" information; some classroom role-
reversal enactment; information about typical language and attitude
handicaps that women students may bring to their writing and to
class; practical ideas for syllabi and classroom use. Short
presentations dealt with the search by some women writers and
scholars for alternatives to "academese" and with women students'
problems in the classroom. Handouts exemplifying various kinds of
work on women and language were provided to participants. Then, in
April 1985, Lynne Gordon, a socio-linguist at Washington State
University, lectured on "Language and Women: Woman As Participant
and Topic." Finally, materials on integration were presented at the
week-long orientation workshop for entering writing teachers in
September 1985.
The project resulted in a variety of materials: (l) a written
account of gender balance in the teaching of writing, for inclusion
in the university writing programs Instructional Guide for
Introductory Writing Courses. (2) a bibliography, also for the
Instructional Guide, of selected readings on gender balance, women
and language, women as writers and readers, classroom climate, and
guidelines for nonsexist writing; (3) a summarY of major issues and
topics in recent work on women and language (essentially the
content of the colloquium lecture, this will be made available as
an informational document to colloquium participants and others).
Results:
The project achieved some success in providing resources for new
teachers and, in particular, in alerting some participants to a
problem they had not known existed. It also provided models of
classroom activities, among them exercises and writing and reading
topics, as well as a general strategy for integrating rather than
intruding gender concerns into the central subject matter of the
writing course. It created further opportunities to present
information about gender balance, for instance, in a colloquium
with English department colleagues and in the "Women and Language"
newsletter. Publicity for the project generated interest on the
part of a number of people working in writing programs elsewhere.
They were eager to receive, and in some cases to share, information
and resources on gender balance.
Contact Person:
Ann Parsons
English Department
University of Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112
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UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING
Laramie, Wyoming
Project Title:
Integrating Gender Issues into "Modes of Understanding"
Background:
The University of Wyoming is the only four-year institution of
higher education in the state. It enrolls about 10,000 students;
8,000 of these are undergraduates, 45 percent female. Seventy-five
percent of the students come from Wyoming, including transfers from
the state's seven community colleges.
In 1981, the university approved a Women's Studies Program and, in
1982, a women's studies minor. From the outset, the mission of the
program has been both to develop a curriculum in women's studies
and to design approaches to the incorporation into existing courses
of women's issues and perspectives as embodied in feminist
scholarship.
A review of the core curriculum of the College of Arts and Sciences
in 1982 provided the opportunity for the program to fulfill its
second mandate. Members of the Women's Studies Committee and the
General Education Committee secured funding from the Northern
Rockies Program on Women in the Curriculum, a regional program
funded by the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education,
to conduct a workshop for the General Education Committee and
departmental core curriculum representatives about the new
scholarship on women and its relevance to liberal education. As a
result of this project, the General Education Committee adopted a
requirement that all courses submitted for inclusion in the new
core curriculum include appropriate attention to the experience of
women and minorities.
The success of this project provided the impetus for extending the
concept of incorporation of feminist scholarship to other important
areas of the curriculum, such as the Honors and Scholars Program.
This program includes students from the College of Arts and
Sciences and from the other colleges of the university. The Honors
and Scholars Program has been redesigned, first, to replace a
Series of discrete requirements with a core of four interrelated
courses to be taken over the four years of the student's career
and, second, to assure that the Honors and Scholars courses would
count toward the new general education requirements and, thus,
toward the student's graduation.
Goals:
The goal of the project was to design and gain approval for the
third-year course of the Honors and Scholars Program, entitled
"Modes of Understanding," which introduces the topic of
epistemology. The intent was that the topic be handled in such a
way that the relationship between gender and epistemology would be
explored.
Activities:
The project was directed by Jean Schaefer, Associate Dean of Arts
and Sciences and Acting Director of Honors. It was designed to
provide faculty members responsible for the course with information
about the relationship between gender and epistemology. These
faculty would interact with a noted consultant, who would provide
them with key articles and books in which this relationship is
explored and assist them with course design.
A committee to design the course was selected and convened in late
August 1984. Because the course was to be coordinated from the
philosophy department and was to involve faculty from the sciences,
the majority of the committee was drawn from these areas.
In September, Sandra Harding, Associate Professor of Philosophy and
Sociology at the University of Delaware, was brought to campus to
pre- sent a two-day workshop for the committee, along with several
public lectures and appearances. A graduate assistant was selected
to assist the committee by gathering pertinent material for
redesigning the course. The committee met long and often during the
fall semester. By January a proposal (see copy following) was ready
to go forward to the General Education Committee.
Results:
The General Education Committee deliberated on the proposal for the
"Modes of Understanding" course in late April 1985, and rejected
it. The nontraditional format of the course may have been a major
reason for the rejection. The committee overseeing the development
of the course and the Honors Program director will make revisions
in the course and resubmit it for approval in 1985-86.
Project success is difficult to assess in the face of the General
Education Committee's rejection of the course proposal. It is no
small accomplishment, however, to have engaged a group of senior
faculty in philosophy and related disciplines in a serious
discussion of feminist scholarship and in a process of developing
a course that explores the relationship of gender and epistemology.
Contact Person:
Janice Harris
Director of Honors
University of Wyoming
Laramie, WY 82071