Going from Pilot to Permanent: The Struggle

In December, 1977 the review of the pilot program began in the Faculty Senate Academic Matters Council. In March, 1978 the Council recommended to the Faculty Senate that Women's Studies be approved as an independent major and that its mandate be extended for five more years. The Council based its recommendations on Women’s Studies’ appeal to older students, its counseling competence, and its “desirable effect on the faculty and student body.”²⁰ But more hurdles remained before Women’s Studies could really move through the bureaucratic process. Once the Faculty Senate approved the proposal, it needed approval from the Provost before it could go forward. Acting Provost Jerry Allen held the proposal on his desk beyond the mandated 90-day clock, despite repeated memos from Cathy Portuges, Women’s Studies’ Academic Coordinator, requesting information about its status.

After much discussion among both faculty and students, supporters of the program held a day-long teach-in, using one of the strategies they had learned in the movements out of which Women’s Studies had sprung. Some students had been ready to take more drastic action, but faculty argued that other less extreme action ought to be taken first to raise awareness and let the administration know that the program had wide support. The event was held in the Student Union Ballroom and many faculty from the university and the Five Colleges attended and spoke in favor of the program. In addition to the founders of Women’s Studies, Lee Edwards, Arlyn Diamond, and Margo Culley, many other faculty also lent their voices: librarian Paula Marks, Professor Doris Abramson from the Theater Department, Professors Johnnetta Cole and John Bracey from the Afro-American Studies Department, Professor Ann Ferguson from Philosophy, Professor Joyce Berkman from History, and Marilyn Schuster from Smith College. Many students also spoke about the importance of the program to both their intellectual and personal lives. A band played between speakers and people came and went throughout the day. Eventually the proposal made it through the highest levels of the university bureaucracy and was approved and Women’s Studies passed yet another milestone.

²⁰ Megan O’Reilly, “Fac Sen sets Wo Stu’s fate,” Daily Collegian, March 9, 1978.