2005 Program Review (AQAD)

The Academic Quality Assessment and Development Review (AQAD) was mandated by the trustees in 1999 and Women’s Studies came up for review in 2005. Designed to help departments assess their current performance and make plans for the future, the AQAD review involved intense self-study coupled with outside evaluation by prominent scholars in the field. The UMass Women’s Studies review team included Beverley Guy-Sheftall of Spelman College, Bettina Aptheker of the University of California at Santa Cruz, and Lynn Weber of the University of South Carolina. Women’s Studies faculty, staff, and students spent the semester leading up to the review preparing for the process.⁵² The team reviewed the program very favorably. Guy-Sheftall, Aptheker, and Weber noted that UMass Women’s Studies had achieved impressive success with very few resources. They also remarked that the program’s curriculum was “unique” in its emphasis on intersectionality and commended Women’s Studies for attaining an ideal that many departments across the country attempted, but failed to meet. Their recommendations were not surprising: Women’s Studies needed more faculty, more space, and faculty offices that were not scattered throughout campus.⁵³

⁵² WOST Newsletter Spring 2005, p. 1.

⁵³ WOST Newsletter Fall 2005, p. 1.