Items

• An Email Thread: Who Actually Was the First Director of the Center for the Study of Women and Society (CSWS)?

  This document provides an email thread that began on March 31, 2008, with Anne Humpherys, part of the Graduate Center's External Review Committee for the Center for the Study of Women and Society (CSWS). In her email, Humpherys stated she was responsible for writing CSWS's history but could not find a list of directors before 1994, when CSWS's director position was combined with the Women's Studies Certificate Program (WSCP) coordinator. Laura Ciavarella-Sanchez, Elizabeth Small, Susan Saegert, Cynthia Epstein, and Anne Kanellopoulos were added to the thread. Finally, though the original director was said to be Mary Brown Parlee, who started in 1979, it was acknowledged that Susan Saegert operationally ran the center from 1977 to 1979. The email thread also revealed that the singular "no" vote on CSWS's creation indicated skepticism and hostility to the fact that such a center was even being considered.
• Background History and Philosophy of the Center for the Study of Women and Society (CSWS) from 1979 - 1996

  This 1996 document provided a concise background history of the Center for the Study of Women and Society (CSWS) from its inception in 1977. It began with CSWS's organizing goals in 1977, which were to promote interdisciplinary research and training on topics related to the experiences and contributions of women in society. To do so, CSWS worked to provide opportunities for scholarly presentations and active organizing; acted as a liaison between City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School members and the Master's of Arts in Liberal Studies (MALS) program's Women's Studies concentration; and provided information on job openings, conferences, fellowships, research awards, and publications. In 1983, CSWS founded the CUNY Feminist Network, which facilitated students' search for appropriate mentors. In 1985, CSWS began designing the Certificate Program in Women's Studies at the CUNY Graduate School. This was approved in the Fall of 1988 and was operative in the Spring 1989 semester. In 1987, CSWS formed the Feminist Academy to encourage members to participate in individual support and involvement through special event invitations and discounts on books from the Feminist Press. By 1996, neither the Feminist Network nor the Feminist Academy existed. The document continued with a list of activities and projects from 1984 to 1996; lists of CSWS's directors from 1979 to the time of the document's writing; a list of the Visiting Scholars from 1984 to 1997; a list of the various CSWS sponsored study groups; a list of CSWS's numerous publications; a list of the different sources of funding for CSWS activities from 1983 to 1997; CSWS governance and facilities; a list of CSWS's speakers for its ongoing speaker series from 1979 to 1996; a list of film screenings from 1979 to 1996; and a list of conferences from 1980 to 1996.
• Annual Report of Research Centers and Institutes July 1, 1991 - June 30, 1992

  This annual report of the Center for the Study of Women and Society (CSWS) from July 1, 1991, to June 30, 1992, provided a summary of CSWS's mission, activities, scholarly papers in refereed journals, abstracts, and other publications, financial support, facilities, equipment, budget, and personnel. CSWS's mission was identified as the development, encouragement, and sponsoring of research in women's studies; provision of assistance to both graduate and undergraduate programs at the City University of New York (CUNY) for major and minor courses; development of programs in women's studies in community education; and the encouragement and coordination of doctoral courses related to women and society. However, due to the growth of different initiatives and accomplishments, CSWS no longer assumed responsibility for coordinating women's studies courses or functioning as a primary source for student advisement, as these were now the responsibility of the Women's Studies Certificate Program office that CSWS had helped to establish. In this report, CSWS cemented its commitment to focusing on gender, race, ethnicity, and class internationally, particularly in urban communities. It stated that several books, chapters, papers, articles, abstracts, and newsletters had been published under the auspices of CSWS and were available upon request.Additionally, many CSWS members had been involved in lectures, seminars, conferences, and symposiums. CSWS members also worked with grassroots organizations, such as the New York City Coalition for Women's Mental Health, publications such as "Sex Roles: A Journal of Research" and The Feminist Press, the Feminist Academy, and the Visiting Scholars program. CSWS received grants from the Japan Institute for Women and Minor's Problems, UNIFEM, the Ford Foundation, and the CUNY Graduate School and had proposed more grants to the same agencies and the National Institute of Drug Abuse. In the 1991 – 1992 fiscal year, the budget indicated that CSWS had spent $78,000 on an income of $101,000.
• Annual Report: Center for the Study of Women and Society

  This July 1, 2014, annual report of the Center for the Study of Women and Society (CSWS) covered the 2014-15 fiscal year, from July 1, 2014, to June 30, 2015. It identified Professor Linda Martín Alcoff as the director of CSWS, which was now located in Room 5116 at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center at 365 5th Avenue in Manhattan. This was followed by information on the monthly Gender and Sexuality Lecture Series, which had been running successfully for six years. Next, the report provided information on CSWS's co-sponsored events, Visiting Scholars, and community outreach. In the section about plans for the future, it was revealed that CUNY's Board of Trustees had approved on March 2, 2015 the Master's of Arts program in Women's and Gender Studies. CSWS worked with CLAGS (the Center for LGBTQ Studies) to develop the Gender and Sexuality track for the MA program. The report then provided information on new faculty, the Advisory Board, and leadership changes. Regarding the latter, Professor Alcoff was to begin a sabbatical, with Queens College and Graduate Center Professor Hester Eisenstein serving as the director of CSWS, coordinator of the Women's Studies Certificate Program (WSCP), and the first director of the new MA program.
• Infusing Material on Women of Color Project Timeline

  A part of the Ford Foundation grant proposal, this file provided a timeline for implementing the inclusion of material on and by women of color (WOC) into the liberal arts curriculum of the City University of New York (CUNY) senior colleges. The timeline had the project set to begin in the fall of 1989 with the selection and orientation of facilitators, followed by the recruitment and orientation of seminar participants from March to May 1990. That three-month period also included selecting seminar lectures and readings for participants and communication with the "Communication Network." A talk by Paula S. Rothenberg, entitled, "Dealing with Faculty Resistance to a Balanced Curriculum" was scheduled for April 23, 1990. The seminars associated with the project were expected to take place from June 18 to 22, 1990. In July and August, there would be a collection and dissemination of revised outlines for courses, evaluations of the seminars, and a survey for the "Communication Network." By the Fall of 1990, participants were expected to implement revised outlines, attend meetings, and publish two newsletters to integrate WOC material into the curricula. In May 1991, there would be a conference on what was a balanced curriculum. The final product, integrated course outlines, would be disseminated in the fall 1991 semester.
• Ford Foundation Grant Proposal: Infusing Material on Women of Color into the Liberal Arts Curriculum of the CUNY Senior Colleges

  This revised June 1989 grant proposal from the Center for the Study of Women and Society (CSWS) to the Ford Foundation requested support for a project designed to incorporate material by and about women of color (WOC) into introductory courses at the ten senior City University of New York (CUNY) colleges. Project designers wished to encourage and assist full-time liberal arts faculty by offering seven intensive one-week seminars, each one targeting a specific introductory course in American history, American literature, economics, political science, sociology, psychology, and English composition. The project designers aimed to provide information and resources for each discipline and establish a formal and active network to continue to promote this integration long after the grant had terminated. The grant would include monthly meetings with invited speakers and discussion groups and monthly newsletters containing teaching experiences and curriculum suggestions. A "Communication Network," consisting of three colleagues per participant that might be responsive to outreach, would also be established. A primary goal of the project was to have as many CUNY faculty members as possible, both male and female, integrate a least some material on women of color into their curricula, and have them understand that they had enough resources to diversify their curricula even if they were not experts on women's, ethnic, or minority studies. The author of the proposal wrote that, all too often, the structure of women's, ethnic, and minority studies reinforced the idea that these were "special topics" and not integral parts of their specific fields of study. Each of the 100 faculty selected to participate in the project would receive a $350 stipend for their work.
• Women's Studies Advisory Committee Minutes

  These minutes from the Women's Studies Advisory Committee Meeting on April 10, 1996, discussed the future of Women's Studies at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center. Specifically noted was a conversation about the relationship between the Women's Studies Certificate Program (WSCP) and the Center for the Study of Women and Society (CSWS) and whether the two should remain a single organization. Joyce Gelb, the director of CSWS, stated that the decision depended on the outgoing and incoming coordinator and the president of the Graduate Center, Dr. Frances Degen Horowitz. According to the minutes, President Horowitz seemed to lean toward keeping the two programs enmeshed because they had worked together successfully for three years. The minutes stated that the cost of the combination of the two programs depended on how the coordinators were to be paid; the administrative costs were low because Joyce Gelb had negotiated a full-time position by combining the administration of the WSCP and CSWS. It was noted that Ms. Gelb stated that this combination of administrations was complex because the two programs were in fact physically separate.