nic studies programs or other programs where race is a prominent
area of study;
remove
administrative obstacles that lock both students and faculty too
narrowly within one academic unit;
minimize
unnecessary course overlap, especially among electives;
seek a
balance in course offerings among humanities, social sciences,
natural sciences, and, in larger universities, professional
fields;
institute
formal and informal interaction with teacher education programs for
the benefit of both women's studies majors and students preparing
to become teachers;
be proactive
about publicizing women's studies programs;
provide an
organization, or at least a series of activities, for women's
studies majors;
design a
required senior course or project specifically to help students
majoring in women's studies prepare for life choices after
graduation;
offer
students majoring in women's studies an option to do "applied
women's studies";
structure a
variety of ways through which faculty members can improve as
feminist teachers.
The Task
Force study reveals both the success and the marginalization of
women's studies, a paradoxical situation peculiar in many ways to
women's studies in the 1990s and one that has enormous and complex
funding implications. To put NWSA's recommendations in their
appropriate context, especially with respect to issues raised
regarding race and ethnicity, it is essential to understand the
critiques of women's studies embedded in those recommendations.
Women's studies advocates must continue to be sensitive, as well,
to the persistent structural and political problems that women's
studies continues to face within the academy.
We must
debunk the myth that women's studies has taken over the academy.
Though secure on many college campuses, it is also the case that
women's studies is barely in the front door on hundreds of campuses
throughout the country, most notably community colleges,
historically black colleges, tribal colleges, and many majority
institutions. The support for women's studies should intensify
during this paradoxical period of assault on the one hand and
increased demand from students and the requirements of diversity on
the other. In fact, women's studies is at a critical juncture in
its evolution and must therefore pursue connections to other
progressive educational reform movements more aggressively. The
March 1992 Purdue University