History of Gender Learning

History and Her-story: Gender at CSB/SJU Re-gaining Momentum After FIPSE Grant Boost
by Lisa Ohm, in collaboration with Keely Nolan assisted by the CSB Center for Women, edited by Ozzie Mayers

Nation-wide the “second wave” of the women’s movement started in the 1960s and during the 1970s became an integral part of on-campus discussions regarding student learning and scholarly research. In 1975 CSB launched the student-run “Women’s Week,” the earliest campus activity focusing on women’s issues.  The earliest academic discussions on feminism at CSB became evident in 1982,  centering around the integration of women’s studies into the liberal arts curriculum. CSB was, after all, a college for women. Did the course catalog reflect that? Today there is a campus-wide commitment to raising gender awareness across our two institutions’ curricular and co-curricular programs. This cross-disciplinary commitment to gender is supported today by a Gender & Women’s Studies (GWST) Program offering a major and a minor, both of which include approaches to masculinity and GLBT issues and a Professorship in Gender Educational and Development, serving as an umbrella organization for various gender initiatives on campus.

S. Linda Kulzer, OSB, then CSB academic vice-president, and S. Dolores Super, OSB, dean, under the presidency of S. Emmanuel Renner (1979-86), started a  gender discussion in readings groups with Mary Lou Belensky, whose book was  published in 1986, Women’s Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind (New York: Basic Books). S. Linda saw CSB and SJU as offering the best of both worlds: a men’s college and a woman’s college that, by collaborating, could develop a “third way.” After attending a conference on Women’s Studies and liberal arts at Wheaton College, MA, in 1982, faculty and staff members formed a committee to incorporate women’s perspectives into the curriculum and to apply for a FIPSE grant. Committee members were: Martha Tomhave Blauvelt, Jill Farry, Jan Lafferty, Sue Lindoo, Ozzie Mayers, Karen Schmid, Annette Atkins, Andy Grannel, Ken Jones, Gary Prevost and Connie Miller.

In the 1982-83 academic year, during the grant-writing process, several other measures increased the discussion of women’s and gender issues. Such events included workshops, speakers, campus visits, study groups, the distribution of bibliographies, long-range planning, and conference attendance, such as “Listening to Women’s Voices,” held in Vermont.

FIPSE is Pivotal

CSB/SJU was awarded a three-year FIPSE grant in 1984 and Ozzie Mayers, English, became the grant director. Great strides were made in integrating gender into the core curriculum with FIPSE funds, albeit through the exhaustive efforts of energetic and hopeful faculty members, such as grant director Mayers and members of the grant council like Martha Tomhave Blauvelt and Joan Steck.

Concrete steps funded by the FIPSE grant were taken in the ensuing years so that by 1987 a few courses had been revised to reflect a gender perspective; handbooks and pamphlets were published to assist faculty members with course revisions; articles appeared in campus newspapers, periodicals, and newsletters and in local publications; a part-time secretary and a part-time bibliographer were hired; research and travel grants supported attendance at gender-related workshops and conferences; library holdings on women’s scholarship were strengthened; subscriptions for women’s studies journals were obtained; readings groups studied works by various feminist writers, such as Peggy McIntosh and Mary Daly. Then FIPSE director Mayers praises the sciences in particular for having achieved the most radical changes to their curriculum under grant funding.

There were many highlights in that period, such as the first event held by an incipient SJU Men’s Studies Program. In 1983 over 300 men packed the Alumni Lounge to attend a panel on “Fathers and Sons” led by John Klassen, OSB. That same year two FIPSE council members attended the 4^th National Women’s Studies Association conference in Seattle, and one attended the 10^th National Conference on Men and Masculinity in St. Louis.

When FIPSE grant funding ended in 1987, the two institutions did not pick up where the grant left off and continue funding. The gender conversation languished. The Core Program established a gender flag to encourage individual efforts by faculty members to include a gendered approach in their course material and their pedagogy. For some that flag had a detrimental effect, however, by preventing the establishment of the woman’s studies minor as was proposed when the FIPSE grant ended.

Gender = Women, Gender = Men & Women

“I think our greatest difficulty was obtaining an understanding in the faculty and among the student body that gender applies to both men and women,” said Joan Steck, chair of the Communication Department. The efforts of the FIPSE grant council members paid off, however; when the grant ended in 1987, Men’s Studies began to grow in earnest at SJU, chiefly through the efforts of Gar Kellom, current SJU Dean of Men.

“So, why not a woman’s studies program?” many asked.

In 1992 a committee of faculty members formed to propose a Women’s Studies minor despite what appeared to be administrative indifference. In 1993 the proposed minor was approved by the faculty/staff assembly and Cate Palezewski (Communication) served as the first director.  After the addition of the word “gender” for men’s studies, the minor plan was approved in 1994 and Linda Lierheimer (History) became the second director of the new Gender & Women’s Studies Program.

Men’s Studies continued to be active at SJU. Men’s studies courses were being taught at SJU,  a men’s speakers series, funded by a “Celebration of Men” grant, was established, and SJU hosted the 22^nd National Conference on Men and Masculinity. In 1996, two CSB students earn the GWST minor.

In 1997 Madhu Mitra (English) became the third GWST director. The Gender Collective was formed to coordinate efforts between GWST faculty members and student development personnel. Other improvements in the program occurred in 1998. The GWST director was granted 2/7 re-assigned time through a strategic initiatives grant. (The director’s current re-assigned time has been reduced to 1/6.) Ozzie Mayers taught the minor’s introductory courses, GWST 101, for the first time as a semester-long course with a men’s studies approach. 

A semester-long capstone course, GWST 390, was taught for the first time in 1999. Four students in 1997 and again in 1998 achieve a GWST minor.

Bush Grant, Old Fires, New Embers

Just as the 1984-87 FIPSE grant stimulated the gender agenda on campus, the 1999-2002 Bush Grant to establish Learning Communities to extend the classroom walls funded the Gender Learning Community, under the directorship of Beth Wengler, History, and the now well-established Women’s Lives and Men’s Lives Speaker series. The grant also allowed the GWST Program director to retain 2/7 re-assigned time. Hopes for a women’s center were dashed when the Academic Budget and Planning Committee did not regard such a center as a possible site for future serious research or learning. Madhu Mitra, English, and other faculty responded with vigor to the budget committee’s “damaging and unfounded” statements.

Despite some bumps in the road, the GWST Program made steady growth under Mitra’s leadership. Jean Keller (Philosophy) took over the leadership reins in 2000 and continued to fine tune and develop GWST’s mission. Faculty members are committed to the program’s mission, and GWST is open to internal debate on issues, such as biological versus social construction of gender, and the interface between diversity issues (race, class, sexual orientation, age, religion) and gender are analyzed.

The program now offers three different approaches to the introductory course: feminism, masculinity, or GLBT. The number and cross-disciplinary courses listed with GWST have increased over the years, reaching a peak under Keller’s leadership of 15 departments. Highlights of the program have been opportunities for team-teaching, a growing number of minors, a few majors established through the Liberal Studies Program, and, most gratifying, an overall greater awareness of and discussion about gender across our two campuses.

SJU established a Center for Men’s Leadership and Service in 2003, and since 2004 is hosting an annual conference on men’s development. In 2004 a Center for Women was opened under student leadership (Lisa Baker, ’04).

In 2003 a Presidential Gender Task Force Committee was established by CSB’s Acting President Carol Guardo and SJU’s President Diedrich Reinhart, OSB.  Committee members met regularly over the next two years to explore the guiding developmental philosophy which provides the rationale for the education of women and for men at our two institutions.   Specifically, the committee addressed the curricular, developmental, and intellectual issues that are inherent in the concepts of a “college for women” and a “college for men.”  At the conclusion of this study, the Gender Task Force Committee presented a conceptual model to the two presidents.  Gender has become an aspect of student and faculty research in all divisions, and a presidential gender task force is working to articulate what makes gender studies unique at our two institutions. One result of this committee’s work is that CSB and SJU have set recognition for gender education and scholarship on gender-related issues as goals in the strategic directions for 2010.

As the next GWST director, Lisa Ohm (Modern and Classical Languages) continued to schedule gender-related reading groups for students and faculty, maintained the academic emphasis of our program, updated the Alum List, and most especially spearheaded a faculty proposal to establish a GWST mjajor; this proposal was successfully approved by the Joint Faculty Assembly in the spring of 2006.  Martha Tomhave (History) became the next GWST director in the fall of 2006 and was able to get Board approval for our major in that semester.  In the spring of 2007, the Joint Faculty Assembly approved a gender requirement for the new Core; this requirement will assure that every student coming to CSB/SJU will have had at least one gender-focused course.  While Martha was director, we graduated our first two majors, one with distinction and the largest number of GWST minors to date.  Meg Lewis (Economics) assumed the directorship of the GWST program in the fall of 2007 .

Dr. Ozzie Mayers was appointed the first Professor of Gender Education and Development in fall of 2006.  This Professorship is given to a faculty member who has made significant contribution to gender education and development through teaching, research, and committee work.The Professorship supports CSBSJU in carrying out a central tenet of its Coordinate Mission: “An emphasis on the persona growth of women and men which incorporates new knowledge about the significance of gender into opportunities for leadership and service on each campus and across both campuses” and highlights the important role of gender development at CSB/SJU.  One of the goals Mayers is hoping to reach is to establish a Center for Gender Education at CSB/SJU and to that end is assisting Instiutional Advancement in seeking endowments for such a center as part of the two institutions' Capital Campaigns.