PROPOSAL FOR A WOMEN'S STUDIES PROGRAM AT BROOKLYN COLLEGE

In the past few years, a vigorous nationwide demand for
courses in Women's Studies has created an imperative, first
to introduce such courses into the traditional curriculum,
then to form Women's Studies Programs, By 1972, such programs
existed at over fifty colleges and universities across the
country, many offering B.A, degrees in the field, The enrollment
at Brooklyn College courses which have focused on Women's
Studies reveals the interest and the need for a more extensive
progran.

In society at large the status and position of women is
currently being examined and, in some cases, transformed with
rapidity and enthusiasm. The background that such a program
as the one proposed would offer to students would equip them
to move directly into training programs for women in law,
biology, psychology, education, business, and industry --
areas where sensitivity to women's special needs is increasingly
being felt and where consequently women prepared to deal
directly with women's problems will have increased job possibil&ties.
Furthermore, M.A. degree programs in the field,wuch as the one
recently established at Sarah Lawrence, will offer students an
opportunity to continue their studies on a graduate level.

The burgeoning of graduate and undergraduate programs in this
field indicates a pressing need to begin training its future
participants and teachers,

For the instructors in a Women's Studies Program, there
is offered the opportngity to develop teaching methods that
will become increasingly important in the context of mass
education and as the need is increasingly felt to develop
approaches to the material of our heritage that make it more
accessible to students not groomed in the traditional manner
for courses in the history of world culture, Teaching in such
a program will also have the effect of encouraging and aiding
the instructors in the development of their own research in
this field. Since Women's Studies is an area in which research
and publication is being vigorously encouraged, many of the
courses offered in the program could stimulate some important
contributions to the field,

Finally, there is a positive advantage to be derived
on the part of the collemitself from such a program, in that
it brings together teachers and students from diverse parts of
a college campus which itself draws both students and faculty
from disparate geographical areas, A Women's Studies Program
would offer a unique opportunity for intercommunication among
schools and departments,


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