The Graduate School and University Center
of The City University of New York

Center for the Study of Women and Society / Box 135-192
Graduate Center: 33 West 42 Street, New York, N.Y. 10036-8099
212 790-4435

Dear Colleague,

Several people who have heard about our project, which is
designed to facilitate the inclusion of Women's Studies in the
Community College curriculum, have asked us for more specific informa-
tion about it. It has proven to be a worthwhile and valuable
undertaking, both for the actual work we are engaged in as well
as for the knowledge gained about more subtle processes and strategies
for introducing change in academic environments.

Enclosed you will find a summary of the project to date.
Please feel free to contact me for further information. If you
would like we can send you a copy of the completed report when it
is availables

Thank you for your interest.

Sincerely,

Sue Rosenberg Zalk, Ph.D.
Director
SRZ: jr


COMMUNITY COLLEGE GENDER-BALANCING CURRICULUM PROJECT
Center for the Study of Women and Society
Graduate School and University Center, CUNY

The Center for the Study of Women and Society, located at the
Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York,
received a grant from the Ford Foundation for the purpose of encouraging
faculty at the Community Colleges to include Women's Studies material
in their courses and to provide resources and assistance to those
faculty interested in this relatively new scholarship and in ways of
incorporating it into standard courses. Funding patterns suggest that
historically Community Colleges have been somewhat ignored by outside
funding agencies in the area of Women's Studies. The Ford Foundation has
been at the forefront in attempting to rectify this imbalance.

The Advisory Board for the project consists of one representative
from each of the Community Colleges. Consultants from the Community
Colleges as well as the other branches of CUNY contribute their expertise
to the project. These consultants have been enlisted as the need arises
for their specialty areas in Women's Studies. The number of faculty and
staff contributing to this project will continue to increase during the
Fall semester, 1985, as the project nears completion.

Although the project is concerned with the issue of gender and
incorporating the new scholarship on and by women into the curriculum,
a concern was expressed by the participants that within gender, balance
for cultural diversity be achieved. As such, consideration and inclusion
of race, ethnicity and class with gender as the axis has become an
essential component of the grant. The Advisory Board agreed that the
final product of the project will be a Guide for incorporating Women's
Studies into basic courses. It will be directed toward Community Colleges
and distributed to all teaching staff.

The first phase of the project involved assessing the status of
Women's Studies at the various Community Colleges. This task, as simple
as it sounds, turned out to be quite difficult. It is clear that, on the
whole, few Women's Studies courses are offered at the Community Colleges.
This, however, varies from college to college. The structure and mission
of the Community Colleges makes the inclusion of Women's Studies courses
problematic. Where such courses do exist, they do so at the initiative
of individual faculty members and in those colleges which place a greater
emphasis on the Liberal Arts, as opposed to the technical programs, and
as such have the flexibility to offer more electives. There are no
Women's Studies programs at the Community Colleges. Analyses of course
content to assess the breadth of inclusion of Women's Studies material
was undertaken. Course outlines proved to be of little help because
most present a brief sketch of the content. Few of the course readings
appeared to reflect feminist scholarship. Informal discussions with
faculty suggested that the amount of Women's Studies content included in
courses was a function of the interests of the instructor. Most of


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the teaching staff approached was receptive to the idea of including
Women's Studies material in their courses and to the assistance this
project promised to offer. Where resistance was encountered it stemmed
from several sources. Some felt concern at being asked to further
increase their work responsibilities. Community College faculty have

a very heavy teaching load (it is not uncommon for them to teach five
courses a semester) and undertaking the mastery of new material and

major course .revisions is an overwhelming task. The assurance that
specific material would be made available reduced the concern. Others
felt their teaching was being scrutinized and judged and were somewhat
hesitant to even share their course outlines. Assurances to the contrary
met with varying degrees of success. The degree of administrative
support varied although there was general enthusiasm for the service

this grant intended to supply. Many administrators voluntarily offered
their assistance in facilitating the project. Exceptions to this seemed
to stem from issues of "turf." While engaged in this project the
Advisory Board has become increasingly sensitive to the numerous issues
and complexities involwed in dealing with institutional change. As a
result a separate section of the final report will deal specifically with
approaches to introducing change in academic settings.

The demands and needs of the Community College students in the
particular system also provide a challenge for this project. Our students
at the seven Community Colleges represent an extremely diverse population
regarding not only race, class and ethnicity, but also in the interests
indicated by enrollment in many diversified two year programs.
Specifically, many of the students are enrolled in technical and other
applied areas and are not required to take many liberal arts courses.

This posed a challenge to the project in that the best attempt must
be made to add balanced information to the knowledge base of as many
students as possible through a broad range of courses.

From its inception this project never intended to introduce Women's
Studies courses per se but to integrate relevant information into
existing courses. Thus, one of the earliest tasks was to decide the
optimal way to expose the most students to this information. Registration
data on courses was collected and analyzed and it was decided that those
Liberal Arts courses which had the greatest number of Liberal Arts and
non-Liberal Arts students in attendance would be the target for this
project. Since this varied somewhat between the Colleges, it was
decided that rather than concentrate on the integration of this material
in specific courses, themes would be used that could be appropriate
to several disciplines. Of the many themes suggested, the final theme
chosen was women, work and family with consideration and inclusion of
race, class and ethnicity. It was felt that this theme addressed the
necessary elements and would represent women of diverse backgrounds and
the many spheres in which they would function.


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With this format in mind, the participants are each proceeding
with this project by viewing women, work and family from the perspectives
of various disciplines: anthropological, psychological, sociological,
historical, economic and literary. Each of these sections will include
suggested key readings for faculty as well as suggested readings for
students with a summary of the key ideas these readings address,. and
discussion and essay questions generated by these readings. An intro-
duction to each section will include a general discussion of issues
regarding the discipline and content and methodology. An extensive
bibliography will be included at the end of the report.

Since English Composition is a required course for all students
at all seven Community Colleges, a separate section on the inclusion
of Women's Studies within this course will be included. Other sections
of the final report will deal with language and communication, class-
room dynamics and pedagogy.

The format of the final report will be a guide for faculty that will
include the following sections:

1. Women's Studies
a. Definition
b. Importance of inclusion in the Community
College curriculum
2. The special mission of the Community Colleges and
its relationship to Women's Studies
- instituting’ change in academic settings
Models of Women's Studies programs in academic settings
Language, communication and classroom dynamics
- Selected curriculum: Inclusions on Women, Family
and Work
a. Overview on biases in content and methodology
in the disciplines
b. Suggested topics
c. Suggested annotated readings for faculty
d. Suggested annotated readings for students
with related discussion and essay questions
7. Extensive bibliography

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Although the completion of the guide will be the final product
of the grant, the participants in the project view this as the
beginning of a larger project on Women's Studies at the Community
Colleges. More specifically, interest in gender-balancing the technical
programs has been expressed. The present vision of such a project would
involve generating suggestions regarding advisement, course content,
classroom dynamics and the match between pedagogy and cognitive
styles, in which they have traditionally been underrepresented. Funding
for this project will be pursued in the future.