from the model of women as victims to women's agency; greater understanding about the significance of women's research centers as support structures for a variety of women's studies and public policy projects; and the blossoming of women's studies internationally.

Despite her optimism about these new directions, Stimpson at the same time expressed pessimism about the nationwide instability of women's studies, given a hostile environment and the stigma still associated with it. She predicted a somewhat gloomy future for women's studies in the academy because of attacks from neoconservatives; decreased federal funding; dwindling institutional resources; too many part-time and/or junior untenured women's studies faculty; the absence of dedicated women's studies positions, which means that programs must rely on faculty in traditional departments; apprehension about graduate training in women's studies; and questions about student interest, given their concern about traditional careers. Although she recognized that in less than a decade "a massive body of scholarship, a network of institutions, a group of devoted practitioners, and the poise to try to realign policy and academic curricula" had been generated, Stimpson emphasized the fragility [my emphasis] of women's studies and the necessity for substantial foundation support.

A decade later, however, it is clear that the development of women's studies has been more promising because of the work and sagacious advocacy of a number of women and a few men. They include, to name only a few out of the many, Florence Howe, Barbara Smith, Evelyn Torton Beck, Alison Bernstein, the late Audre Lorde, Johnnella Butler, William Chafe, Mariam Chamberlain, Johnnetta Cole, Bonnie Thornton Dill, Myra Dinnerstein, bell hooks, Gerda Lerner, Patricia Bell-Scott, Gloria Hull, Andree McLaughlin, Betty Schmitz, Alice Kessler-Harris, and Catharine Stimpson. The tenacity of women's studies' old and new devotees portends a bright, though perhaps rocky, road ahead.

Despite this time of consolidation, it is clear that much work remains to be done. This is apparent in the list of 14 recommendations that the National Women's Studies Association Task Force made in 1991 to the Association of American Colleges:

• free women's studies programs from institutional constraints that weaken curricular offerings;

• increase the overall budget in women's studies programs;

• identify specific locations in the women's studies curriculum where issues of race and ethnicity will be addressed;

• recruit faculty members of color for women's studies programs;

• enhance interactions between women's studies programs and eth-