Letter from Sara Coulter to Mildred E. Mathias

( \ m/r / Z(A. TOWSON STATE COLLEGE Baltimore, Maryland^04 % ' Щ July 17, 1973 Ms. Mildred E. Mathias, Chairman Committee for the Women's Studies Program and Professor of Botany University of California Los Angeles, California 90023 JUL 10 ятз Dear Ms. Mathias: Dean Shaw forwarded to me for reply your letter of June 1 8 asking for information on our Women's Studies Program. The enclosed brochure and the more detailed description of our concentration in Women's Studies and of the Women's Studies Committee will supply much of the information you requested. We are in the process of writing a "nuts and bolts" account of our program and feminist activities which I will send you as soon as it is completed. In the meantime, perhaps it would be helpful if I described the relationship of -the Women's Studies Committee to the depart¬ ments. The Women's Studies Committee was appointed by and is answerable to the Academic Dean of the College. It is a function of the Committee to encourage and h&lp in the development of department courses in Women's Studies/Tut tne Committee has no authority over those courses except to determine whether they can or cannot be used to fulfill the requirements of the General Studies Concentration In Women's Studies which the Committee created and administered. The Committee has direct authority over the interdisciplinary courses in the Concentration because the Committee created these courses for the Concentration, and they are classified under General Studies rather than a department. We have not clarified the problems of how to count faculty load when they are participating in these interdisciplinary courses , but we favor a system in which full credit is given to the faculty members with the contact hours counted either in General Studies or the respective department, whichever is most favorable to the department. We have proposed that the entity General Studies subsidize if necessary the interdisciplinary courses if contact hourSJ deficiences result from 2 or more facnl tv teaching' one course. The Committee does not have authority to hire faculty but can in¬ directly influence departmental hiring decisions by indicating a need in the Women's Studies area of a discipline. We have a good