A Proposal Emerges in 1973

By November of 1973, the Women’s Studies Subcommittee of the Faculty Senate Committee on the Status of Women submitted a proposal for a Women’s Studies Pilot Program to the Committee on Academic Matters, the Faculty Senate committee responsible for new academic programs.¹² The Everywoman’s Center provided crucial support for this proposal. Ann Jones held a three-year terminal appointment which was split three ways between the Everywoman’s Center, the English Department, and the Southwest Women’s Center. Her main project for the EWC was to work on the Women’s Studies proposal. EWC staff person Ann McCord also spent time managing some of the Committee’s secretarial tasks and scheduling meetings.

The carefully crafted document the Women’s Studies Subcommittee submitted proposed a two-year pilot project. It suggested two avenues for students to participate in a Women’s Studies program: a major, granted through the auspices of BDIC, [Bachelor’s Degree with Individual Concentration] and a certificate to supplement their other major work. This pilot program laid the groundwork for a permanent program with a major and certificate minor that, upon approval, would start in the fall of 1976. The initial proposal suggested that the new program should be housed near the Everywoman’s Center and should have representatives from the residential women’s centers serve on the Women’s Studies Policy Board. The Policy Board would consist of three students, three faculty sponsors, two university staff members, two community resource people, and the Program Coordinator.

To make the argument that students would have enough courses to complete the major and minor, the proposal included the list of descriptions of courses on women already offered at UMass and the 5 Colleges and noted the 24 faculty who had already made commitments of courses they would teach that could be counted as women’s studies courses. This list included faculty from English, Education, Philosophy, Comparative Literature, Anthropology, Psychology, History, and Political Science. Also in order to bolster the argument for the program, the proposal noted the growth of Women’s Studies in U.S. colleges and universities from 1971 through 1973, drawing reviewers’ attention to the larger significance and national context of the proposal.

¹² The Women’s Studies sub-committee consisted of Deborah Felton (student), Ann McCord (Everywoman’s Center staff), Jean Leppaluoto (Associate Provost for Affirmative Action), Jean Elshtain (faculty), Arlene Ryan (graduate student, now Arlene Avakian), Mary Ellen Delaney (student?), Ann Jones (faculty), and Maurianne Adams (faculty). AF papers, Box 6, “Women’s Studies 1st Proposals 1974 & History Thru 1978” Folder.