Discussion of the problem: Women's status within American higher education reflects an intellectual bias that is deeply rooted in the disciplinary methods and social assumptions of university communities. Such bias weakens and limits university research efforts. It deters women students from many fields that could benefit from their equal presence with men as students, researchers, and professional leaders. Until such bias is acknowledged and addressed through faculty development and support for curricular change, women and men will continue to be denied the full benefits of higher education. Women's Studies and women's presence in the institution cannot be ghettoized. Critical and innovative work on the curriculum must be seen as an intellectual imperative to transform the production and dissemination of knowledge.

Two approaches to organizing women-friendly and culturally diverse curricula are best seen as complementary rather than antagonistic. Our universities need both a strong separate academic program in Women's Studies and an institutional commitment affirmed at every level to transforming the curriculum with perspectives from scholarship on women and other historically oppressed groups. The process of transformation is best conducted with guidance from an autonomous Women's Studies site and active Women's Studies scholars working cooperatively with others.

Colleges and universities that have moved assertively to offer more diverse experiences have benefited from higher rates of student satisfaction and recruitment, while also better preparing their students for the future. Leadership at the highest levels is needed to spur and maintain curricular and pedagogical transformation in all academic programs.

Vision for the Year 2000:

1. All General Education courses integrate scholarship on and by women and use content and pedagogies that are women-friendly.

2. Academic departments that consistently surface with disproportionately high female drop-out rates are penalized.

3. All student evaluation instruments include questions on the inclusiveness of the curriculum and on the appropriateness of teaching methods to different kinds of students.

4. Faculty whose students identify their courses, teaching styles, and mentoring as failing to be inclusive do not receive teaching prizes, satisfactory teaching evaluations, or merit raises.

5. Each campus has met targets for staffing Women's Studies positions for the year 2000 based on benchmarks set by leading public universities.

6. There are opportunities for graduate work in Women's Studies both within departments and in interdisciplinary courses. Graduate students are encouraged and supported in focusing their study on women's issues.

7. The university has established mechanisms for ongoing review of courses and curricula and ongoing faculty development to assure appropriate inclusion of scholarship by and about women and members of other historically underrepresented groups.