On Our Minds, Spring 1987

Introducing Our New Publication by Elaine Hedges 1987 marks over a decade and a half of Women's Studies work at Towson, and we take the occasion of this new publication to look back, see where we have arrived, and where we hope to go. Officially established in 1973, Towson's Women's Studies program is one of the oldest in the United States, and it was developed, like the majority of such programs in the early years of the women's movement, through the voluntary and generous efforts of dedicated faculty. These faculty, recognizing the absence from the curriculum of materials and perspectives on women, began in the early 1970s to create new courses that would provide students with the knowledge that was missing. The courses drew upon and incorporated the new scholarly research on women that was then being developed and that has since profoundly affected all academic disciplines. Both nationally and at Towson, Women's Studies has grown dramatically since those early years. Today there are over 30,000 Women's Studies courses in colleges and universities, and Women's Studies programs have been established at all leading educational institutions. Towson's program consists of over forty courses in fifteen departments, and it offers both a major and a minor concentration. It has graduated students who have moved into a variety of career and work areas, from law and counselling to librarianship and editorial work to restaurant ownership and landscape gardening. As a comprehensive liberal arts major, that is to say, Women's Studies is an excellent preparation for a variety of careers and life situations. Its importance to a liberal education is recognized by its inclusion as a GUR area: several Women's Studies courses are available as GUR courses, including the entry level course, "Women in Perspective," which provides a broad overview of feminist thought and of contemporary issues important to women. The quality ofTowson's Women's Studies program was nationally recognized in 1982 when EVERYWOMAN'S GUIDE TO COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES, a survey and analysis of how adequately educational institutions were providing for women, ranked Towson with two other schools as highest among institutions of its kind. The next year, 1983, the program received further national recognition, as the recipient of a $250,000 award from the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE) to conduct a major three year project to integrate the new scholarship on women into the curriculum. (See accompanying article, this page.) As the result of the FIPSE project, and of the continuation work we are doing both on and off campus, the audience for news about A newsletter of the Women's Studies Program Towson State University Baltimore, MD 21204 Spring 1987 Vol. I No. 1 the activities of the Towson Women's Studies program has grown. During the years of the FIPSE project a semi-annual newsletter, RE-VISIONS, kept both local and national readers informed of workshops, conferences, speakers, and other specific project activities. Meanwhile, an on-campus newsletter, ON OUR MINDS, provided the Towson community with other information about Women's Studies. This Spring 1987 issue of ON OUR MINDS introduces a new newsletter. It will retain a familiar name, and it will combine the news coverage of both of our previous publications. ON OUR MINDS will appear each Spring and Fall, and will be circulated on campus, regionally, and nationally, to students, faculty, and administrators. It will contain news items, topical articles, book reviews, and analyses of issues relevant to women and education, including the on-going work of curriculum transformation. We hope you will enjoy reading this new publication, and we would like to hear from you. Letters to the editor, suggestions for articles, and submissions are all welcome. Please address correspondence to ON OUR MINDS, c/o Elaine Hedges, Women's Studies, Towson State University, Baltimore, MD 21204, or phone 301- 321-2860. Changing the Curriculum: the FIPSE Project by Sara Coulter Since the late 1960s Women's Studies courses and programs have provided students with the information about women's lives and experiences that the traditional curriculum ignores. These courses and programs, however, have often remained separate from the traditional curriculum. Creating a curriculum that is truly integrated - one derived from the history and perspectives of both women and men, of all classes and races - has therefore become the goal of the second phase of Women's Studies. For the past five years Tow son has been engaged in this second phase work. In 1982-83 the Faculty Development office supported a pilot project to introduce teachers of American literature and American history to the vast body of new research on women in their fields. The purpose was to encourage them to modify their courses based on the new research. In 1983-84 this work was extended, through a $250,000 grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education of the United States Department of Education (FIPSE). Under the FIPSE grant, over seventy faculty in thirteen academic disciplines met in workshops for three years to study the new scholarship on women, to incorporate it into their courses, and to teach and evaluate the new courses.