Email from Beth Vanfossen to Beverly Leetch, 2000

The NCCTRW budget question Subject: The NCCTRW budget question Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 06:17:48 -0400 From: Beth Vanfossen <bvanfossen@towson.edu> Organization: Institute for Teaching and Research on Women, Towson University To: bleetch@towson.edu, kdugger <kdugger@saber.towson.edu> Beverly — I have just been reading the emails regarding the NCCTRW budget. For what it is worth — I was involved in all the transactions between Sara and John Haeger about the NCCTRW budget, and was chair of the Search Committee that hired Karen. Never in all that time to my knowledge was it said that the operating budget for NCCTRW would terminate at the end of June 2000. I certainly would have noticed such a statement. I do not know why the budget was set for termination without the knowledge of the people in charge of NCCTRW. During those conversations, it _was_ implied that it would be the job of NCCTRW to raise additional funds. Karen is well aware of that expectation, and has been making good, solid plans to meet the expectation. Sara's original appeal to Haeger for an ongoing budget was that a stable base of support is needed to tide the NCCTRW over between grants. This realization came out of Sara's experience with the absence of grant monies the last year she was here. Sara applied to FIPSE for a new grant during that last year, got through the first cut, but in the end her proposal was not funded due to FIPSE cancelling the competition because of demands from the Congress that their pet projects be funded. Karen reoriented that grant proposal and reapplied during the fall 1999 during her half-time semester, and that was not funded either (FIPSE funds only about 3% of its applications), even though the reviewers had very positive things to say about the underlying concepts. Nevertheless, in June, Karen put on an extremely successful 2-week workshop in Barbados attended by about 25 participants (including me, so I can honestly say that it was of very high quality — the best workshop I have ever attended, and I have been to a lot), and brought in profit from that endeavor. She plans to do it again, and charge a little more money to increase the profits. She will need adequate graduate student help in order to do it, however. She has too much on her plate to become the clerical worker as well. The summer workshops alone deserve Towson University's support. They are path-breaking in their design and intent, and likely to continue to be highly successful. So, I think there really are two issues here. One is the lack of knowledge on the part of people involved in Karen's hiring that Haeger had scheduled the operating budget to be temporary, and the ethical problem that poses since we asked Karen to tear up her roots at another place where she was tenured in order to continue the work of the NCCTRW. The other is whether or not Towson U is willing to provide the level of ongoing support for the NCCTRW to survive between grant funding periods . To argue the latter: NCCTRW has given Towson enormous positive publicity nationwide. (For example, it is the only organization mentioned by name in an extensive report put out recently by the National Women's Studies Association about the status of the field. This report is available for the world to see on the NWSA's web site.) Karen is re-orienting the focus of the NCCTRW somewhat more toward international and cross-cultural comparative issues within women's studies — a focus which is corrective to the somewhat parochial perspectives that have dominated the field in the past, and in keeping with recent trends in the direction of women's studies scholarship. It also is a focus which is compatible with the international concentration of the new WMST master's program. Karen not only has already put on the highly-successful Barbados workshop which shows that such a workshop has great appeal to national and international faculty. She also plans to introduce web-based courses which can be taken by faculty all over the world. When these courses are up and running, the publicity for Towson, and the good that Towson can do, will be substantial. We hired Karen for her innovative perspective, and both of these ideas are testimony to that quality. To continue 1 of3 9/1/00 2:14 PM