An Email Thread: Who Actually Was the First Director of the Center for the Study of Women and Society (CSWS)?
Item
Message Page 1 of 1
From: Ciavarella-Sanchez, Laura
Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 10:07 AM
To: Kanellopoulos, Anne
Subject: RE:
Anne:
It was either Susan Saegert or Mary Parlee (I think Parlee took over after Saegert, but it could have been the
other way around). It was also called the Center for the Study of Women and Sex Roles originally, but then the
title was changed. To be sure, | would suggest checking with Susan Saegert.
Laura
From: Kanellopoulos, Anne
Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 10:02 AM
To: Ciavarella-Sanchez, Laura
Subject:
Good morning Laura,
| have a question and maybe you can answer it for me. Elizabeth Small needs to know who was the
founder of the Center for the Study of women and Society. I’m in the folder right now but | cannot find who
was the founder. I’m looking in the by-laws and that too does not say who was the founder. We only know
that it was established in 1977 and the director in 1981 was Mary Brown Parlee. | know you always did a
great job with the centers and you also have a good memory and this why | thought maybe you could
answer my question.
Thank you,
Anne
Anne Kanellopoutos
The Graduate School and University Center/CUNY
Office of Research and Sponsored Programs
365 Sth Avenue, Room 8309
New York, NY 10016-4309
Phone (212) 817-7527
akanellopoulos@ac.cuny.edu
4/3/2008
Page 1 of 1
Small, Elizabeth
From: Kanellopoulos, Anne
Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 2:53 PM
To: Saegert, Susan
Ce: Small, Elizabeth
Subject: RE:
Thank you so much, Laura was correct.
Anne Kanellopoulos
The Graduate School and University Center/CUNY
Office of Research and Sponsored Programs
365 Sth Avenue, Room 8309
New York, NY 10016-4309
Phone (212) 817-7527
akanellopoulos@gc.cuny.edu
From: Saegert, Susan
Sent: Thursday, April 03,,2008 2:26 PM
To: Kanellopoulos, Anne
Subject: RE:
Anne, | was the first director and here before Mary Parlee. AS a way too junior person, | was pretty
overwhelmed and managed to get permission to recruit Mary. She came after maybe 2 years of my
being director.
Susan
From: Kanellopoulos, Anne
Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 10:33 AM
To: Saegert, Susan
Subject:
Professor Saegert,
| have a question for you do you remember who was the founder of the Center for the Study of
Women and Sex Roles back in the year of 1977? In our files we have Mary Brown Parlee who
was the Director: Were you after her or was she before you or was there someone before both of
you?
Thank you.
Anne
Anne Kanellopoulos
The Graduate School and University Center/CUNY
Office of Research and Sponsored Programs
365 Sth Avenue, Room 8309
New York, NY 10016-4309
Phone (212) 817-7527
akanellopoulos@gc.cuny.edu
4/4/2008
Page 1 of 2
© You replied on 4/4/2008 6:36 PM.
Humpherys, Anne
From: Epstein, Cynthia Sent: Fri 4/4/2008 3:14 PM
To: Humpherys, Anne
Ce:
Subject: RE: Center for the Study of Women&Socity
Attachments:
Dear Anne:
My memory is more than dim on this subject. | remember being involved but | don't think | could be said to
have spearheaded it.
It's planning and origin was probably more due to the efforts of Judith Lorber (now emerita from Brooklyn
College and the Graduate Center) (jlorber@rcn.com) and perhaps Gaye Tuchman (now at U of Conn). Gaye
and | established a training grant on the Economics and Sociology of Women and Work at that time (Charlotte
M fuller was the third faculty member and was the "economics" person) with grants for students and post
graduate fellowships. We had a number of outstanding students, one of whom, Mary Clare Lennon just became
a member of our department (after being in the school of Public Health at Columbia).
(| must admit that | started a Center for Sex Roles and Social Change at Columbia University with Jonathan
Cole and Cynthia Lloyd right about that time with money from the Ford Foundation - at that time | was mainly
positioned at Queens College and not a fixture yet at the Graduate Center!).
That's about the best | can do.
Yours,
Cynthia
Cynthia Fuchs Epstein
Distinguished Professor
Graduate Center, CUNY
365 Fifth Avenue
New York, N.Y. 10016
212 817 8782
From: Humpherys, Anne
Sent: Fri 4/4/2008 1:27 PM
To: Epstein, Cynthia
Subject: Center for the Study of Women&Socity
Dear Cynthia,
The Center for the Study of Women and Society is to undergo an External Review this spring. Since the
Women's Studies Certificate Program went through a major external review last spring, this will be a kind of
addendum to that report. But one of the things | have to do to prepare the report that goes along with the
review is to write a history of the Center. | have tracked down most of the material, but what | don't have is a
clear sense of how the Center got started. | know it started in 1977 officially, and | have the directors and so
forth from that point on. But how did it start? Susan Saegert said it was a (long?) joint effort by yourself, Gay
Tuchman, and others but she doesn't know the details. Would you be able to give me a few sentences about
the pre-history of the Center as it were: who was involved if possible and so on? Anything you remember would
be very helpful. | think this will be a useful document for the Center and for its future Directors when finished.
Thanks.
https://wa.gc.cuny.edu/exchange/A Humpherys/Inbox/RE:%20Center%20for%20the%20Stu... 4/7/2008
Page 1 of 2
[a You replied on 4/4/2008 12:44 PM. |
Humpherys, Anne
From: Saegert, Susan Sent: Fri 4/4/2008 11:37 AM
To: Humpherys, Anne
Cc:
Subject: RE: Center for the Study of Women and Society
Attachments:
HI Anne,
| was director from the time the Center was operational 1977 until Mary Parlee came. During that period, we
did manage to get a Ford grant (or maybe it didn’t actually come through until Mary was here but it was
originated prior) and Cynthia Epstein and Gay Tuchman had a women and work federally funded project. |
think Mary Clare Lennon who is now on the Soc. Faculty here may have been a post doc on it. My task was to
talk with all the EO’s here to get them on board (the no vote was indicative of the skeptical and sometimes
hostile climate to the idea that this was even a topic), form a group of faculty who could work with a GC center
which involved a lot of cross campus negotiations that were really arcane and | was very young at the time.
The ground work for the center was laid by a group of senior women faculty including Cynthia Epstein, Joan
Kelly (deceased), Florence Denmark | think, Gerta Lerner, and a lot of others. They had worked for years on
the development of the Center but since it was essential more work with no compensation, none of them
wanted to direct the center. | am afraid an effort to enumerate them would run the risk of offending some by
leaving them out and adding in others who came later.
Hope this helps. | think that Cynthia would be a good informant as well.
Susan
-----Original Message-----
From: Humpherys, Anne
Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 5:55 PM
To: Saegert, Susan
Subject: Center for the Study of Women and Society
Dear Professor Saegert,
As you may know | am currently the Coordinator for the Women's Studies Certificate Program and
Director of the Center for the Study of Women and Society. We are going to have an external review of
the Center this spring and part of the requirement is that | write a history of the Center. We have good
documentation from 1979 when Mary Parlee came to the GC and became Director, but beyond
knowing that the Center was founded in 1977 we have nothing about the previous years. Laura
Cavarella-Sanchez says she remembers that you were in at the founding of the Center and that you
were, as she remembered, Director for those years before Mary Parlee took over.
First, is this right? And second, is there anything you can tell me about the founding of the Center? We
have the original proposal for an Institute for the Study of Women and Sex which was approved by the
Board in 1976 (with Dr. Golder voting no (!! What was that about?)). Do you know when the name
https://wa.gc.cuny.edu/exchange/AHumpherys/Inbox/RE:%20Center%20for%20the™o20Stu... 4/4/2008
Page 1 of 1
Small, Elizabeth
From: Humpherys, Anne
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 4:40 PM
To: Small, Elizabeth
Subject: External review
Elizabeth: | am starting to write my part of the External Review of the Center. | find that | don't know the history of
the Center. When did it start? Who started it? Who were the Directors until 1993 when the WSCP and CSWS
were combined under one person? Can you locate in the files any information about the history of the Center from
its start (in 19777)?
Also, was there ever a separate Advisory Board for the Center? If so, when? Who was on it? What happened to
it?
In other words, can you get from the files any information about the Center that can help me answer questions
like these?
History and date of establishment?- / 4 i 7-
Leadership and advisory committee and advisory mechanisms?
Center Programs?
Faculty and student involvement?
outreach efforts?
Thanks
Anne
Professor Anne Humpherys
Coordinator of Women's Studies Certificate Program
Director of the Center for Research on Women and Society
The Graduate Center CUNY
Professor of English, Lehman College and
Ph.D. Program in English, The Graduate Center
City University of New York
4/1/2008
From: Ciavarella-Sanchez, Laura
Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 10:07 AM
To: Kanellopoulos, Anne
Subject: RE:
Anne:
It was either Susan Saegert or Mary Parlee (I think Parlee took over after Saegert, but it could have been the
other way around). It was also called the Center for the Study of Women and Sex Roles originally, but then the
title was changed. To be sure, | would suggest checking with Susan Saegert.
Laura
From: Kanellopoulos, Anne
Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 10:02 AM
To: Ciavarella-Sanchez, Laura
Subject:
Good morning Laura,
| have a question and maybe you can answer it for me. Elizabeth Small needs to know who was the
founder of the Center for the Study of women and Society. I’m in the folder right now but | cannot find who
was the founder. I’m looking in the by-laws and that too does not say who was the founder. We only know
that it was established in 1977 and the director in 1981 was Mary Brown Parlee. | know you always did a
great job with the centers and you also have a good memory and this why | thought maybe you could
answer my question.
Thank you,
Anne
Anne Kanellopoutos
The Graduate School and University Center/CUNY
Office of Research and Sponsored Programs
365 Sth Avenue, Room 8309
New York, NY 10016-4309
Phone (212) 817-7527
akanellopoulos@ac.cuny.edu
4/3/2008
Page 1 of 1
Small, Elizabeth
From: Kanellopoulos, Anne
Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 2:53 PM
To: Saegert, Susan
Ce: Small, Elizabeth
Subject: RE:
Thank you so much, Laura was correct.
Anne Kanellopoulos
The Graduate School and University Center/CUNY
Office of Research and Sponsored Programs
365 Sth Avenue, Room 8309
New York, NY 10016-4309
Phone (212) 817-7527
akanellopoulos@gc.cuny.edu
From: Saegert, Susan
Sent: Thursday, April 03,,2008 2:26 PM
To: Kanellopoulos, Anne
Subject: RE:
Anne, | was the first director and here before Mary Parlee. AS a way too junior person, | was pretty
overwhelmed and managed to get permission to recruit Mary. She came after maybe 2 years of my
being director.
Susan
From: Kanellopoulos, Anne
Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 10:33 AM
To: Saegert, Susan
Subject:
Professor Saegert,
| have a question for you do you remember who was the founder of the Center for the Study of
Women and Sex Roles back in the year of 1977? In our files we have Mary Brown Parlee who
was the Director: Were you after her or was she before you or was there someone before both of
you?
Thank you.
Anne
Anne Kanellopoulos
The Graduate School and University Center/CUNY
Office of Research and Sponsored Programs
365 Sth Avenue, Room 8309
New York, NY 10016-4309
Phone (212) 817-7527
akanellopoulos@gc.cuny.edu
4/4/2008
Page 1 of 2
© You replied on 4/4/2008 6:36 PM.
Humpherys, Anne
From: Epstein, Cynthia Sent: Fri 4/4/2008 3:14 PM
To: Humpherys, Anne
Ce:
Subject: RE: Center for the Study of Women&Socity
Attachments:
Dear Anne:
My memory is more than dim on this subject. | remember being involved but | don't think | could be said to
have spearheaded it.
It's planning and origin was probably more due to the efforts of Judith Lorber (now emerita from Brooklyn
College and the Graduate Center) (jlorber@rcn.com) and perhaps Gaye Tuchman (now at U of Conn). Gaye
and | established a training grant on the Economics and Sociology of Women and Work at that time (Charlotte
M fuller was the third faculty member and was the "economics" person) with grants for students and post
graduate fellowships. We had a number of outstanding students, one of whom, Mary Clare Lennon just became
a member of our department (after being in the school of Public Health at Columbia).
(| must admit that | started a Center for Sex Roles and Social Change at Columbia University with Jonathan
Cole and Cynthia Lloyd right about that time with money from the Ford Foundation - at that time | was mainly
positioned at Queens College and not a fixture yet at the Graduate Center!).
That's about the best | can do.
Yours,
Cynthia
Cynthia Fuchs Epstein
Distinguished Professor
Graduate Center, CUNY
365 Fifth Avenue
New York, N.Y. 10016
212 817 8782
From: Humpherys, Anne
Sent: Fri 4/4/2008 1:27 PM
To: Epstein, Cynthia
Subject: Center for the Study of Women&Socity
Dear Cynthia,
The Center for the Study of Women and Society is to undergo an External Review this spring. Since the
Women's Studies Certificate Program went through a major external review last spring, this will be a kind of
addendum to that report. But one of the things | have to do to prepare the report that goes along with the
review is to write a history of the Center. | have tracked down most of the material, but what | don't have is a
clear sense of how the Center got started. | know it started in 1977 officially, and | have the directors and so
forth from that point on. But how did it start? Susan Saegert said it was a (long?) joint effort by yourself, Gay
Tuchman, and others but she doesn't know the details. Would you be able to give me a few sentences about
the pre-history of the Center as it were: who was involved if possible and so on? Anything you remember would
be very helpful. | think this will be a useful document for the Center and for its future Directors when finished.
Thanks.
https://wa.gc.cuny.edu/exchange/A Humpherys/Inbox/RE:%20Center%20for%20the%20Stu... 4/7/2008
Page 1 of 2
[a You replied on 4/4/2008 12:44 PM. |
Humpherys, Anne
From: Saegert, Susan Sent: Fri 4/4/2008 11:37 AM
To: Humpherys, Anne
Cc:
Subject: RE: Center for the Study of Women and Society
Attachments:
HI Anne,
| was director from the time the Center was operational 1977 until Mary Parlee came. During that period, we
did manage to get a Ford grant (or maybe it didn’t actually come through until Mary was here but it was
originated prior) and Cynthia Epstein and Gay Tuchman had a women and work federally funded project. |
think Mary Clare Lennon who is now on the Soc. Faculty here may have been a post doc on it. My task was to
talk with all the EO’s here to get them on board (the no vote was indicative of the skeptical and sometimes
hostile climate to the idea that this was even a topic), form a group of faculty who could work with a GC center
which involved a lot of cross campus negotiations that were really arcane and | was very young at the time.
The ground work for the center was laid by a group of senior women faculty including Cynthia Epstein, Joan
Kelly (deceased), Florence Denmark | think, Gerta Lerner, and a lot of others. They had worked for years on
the development of the Center but since it was essential more work with no compensation, none of them
wanted to direct the center. | am afraid an effort to enumerate them would run the risk of offending some by
leaving them out and adding in others who came later.
Hope this helps. | think that Cynthia would be a good informant as well.
Susan
-----Original Message-----
From: Humpherys, Anne
Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 5:55 PM
To: Saegert, Susan
Subject: Center for the Study of Women and Society
Dear Professor Saegert,
As you may know | am currently the Coordinator for the Women's Studies Certificate Program and
Director of the Center for the Study of Women and Society. We are going to have an external review of
the Center this spring and part of the requirement is that | write a history of the Center. We have good
documentation from 1979 when Mary Parlee came to the GC and became Director, but beyond
knowing that the Center was founded in 1977 we have nothing about the previous years. Laura
Cavarella-Sanchez says she remembers that you were in at the founding of the Center and that you
were, as she remembered, Director for those years before Mary Parlee took over.
First, is this right? And second, is there anything you can tell me about the founding of the Center? We
have the original proposal for an Institute for the Study of Women and Sex which was approved by the
Board in 1976 (with Dr. Golder voting no (!! What was that about?)). Do you know when the name
https://wa.gc.cuny.edu/exchange/AHumpherys/Inbox/RE:%20Center%20for%20the™o20Stu... 4/4/2008
Page 1 of 1
Small, Elizabeth
From: Humpherys, Anne
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 4:40 PM
To: Small, Elizabeth
Subject: External review
Elizabeth: | am starting to write my part of the External Review of the Center. | find that | don't know the history of
the Center. When did it start? Who started it? Who were the Directors until 1993 when the WSCP and CSWS
were combined under one person? Can you locate in the files any information about the history of the Center from
its start (in 19777)?
Also, was there ever a separate Advisory Board for the Center? If so, when? Who was on it? What happened to
it?
In other words, can you get from the files any information about the Center that can help me answer questions
like these?
History and date of establishment?- / 4 i 7-
Leadership and advisory committee and advisory mechanisms?
Center Programs?
Faculty and student involvement?
outreach efforts?
Thanks
Anne
Professor Anne Humpherys
Coordinator of Women's Studies Certificate Program
Director of the Center for Research on Women and Society
The Graduate Center CUNY
Professor of English, Lehman College and
Ph.D. Program in English, The Graduate Center
City University of New York
4/1/2008
Title
An Email Thread: Who Actually Was the First Director of the Center for the Study of Women and Society (CSWS)?
Description
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.
Since 1977, the Center for the Study of Women and Society (CSWS), Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY) has promoted interdisciplinary feminist scholarship. The Center’s research agenda focuses on the intersectional study of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, and nation in societies worldwide. The Center co-sponsors the Women’s Studies Certificate Program and, most notably, hosts the only stand-alone Women’s and Gender Studies MA Program in New York City.
Creator
Kanellopoulos, Anne
Ciavarella-Sanchez, Laura
Saegert, Susan
Small, Elizabeth
Date
April 3, 2008
Language
English
Source
Center for the Study of Women and Society
Original Format
Correspondence
Kanellopoulos, Anne, Ciavarella-Sanchez, Laura, Saegert, Susan, and Small, Elizabeth. Letter. “An Email Thread: Who Actually Was the First Director of the Center for the Study of Women and Society (CSWS)?.”, CUNY DIGITAL HISTORY ARCHIVE, accessed March 10, 2026, https://stephenz.tailc22a4b.ts.net/s/cdha/item/1587