Students, alumni and Muncie community members will seek support and visability when they take part in a protest planned for Friday, June 19, in response to the changes taking place with the Women's Studies Program.
Beginning Fall 2009, the Women's Studies Program will no longer exist as it has in the past. The program will be renamed Women's and Gender Studies, a new director will be hired from within the College of Science and Humanities and the program will become part of another department.
Additionally, women's studies students are concerned about the availabilty of scholarships, a lack of women's studies-focused faculty members and that Women's Week will no longer exist.
Interim Director of the Women's Studies Program Julee Rosser said there will no longer be an assistant director position and internships won't be offered. She explained that current women's studies professors will have to apply to the new director to be affiliate faculty, but there is no guarentee that they will teach the classes they have been teaching, because the new director will make the decision.
"I've seen what the Women's Studies Program has done for so many people," Jimmy Stevenson, a Dec. 2008 graduate with a chemisty degree, said. "It broadens their field of knowledge."
Stevenson said he plans to attend the protest in support of the students demonstrating against the changes.
He said most curriculum is male-based, and that classes in women's studies helps students understand a female perspective.
"It really can enrich their understanding of our culture," Stevenson said. "And they've been making great strides to improve."
There were nearly 80 students seeking a major or minor in women's studies before the Spring Semester ended.
Michael Maggiotto, dean of the College of Science and Humanities, said he consulted a task force of 12 colleagues with a "history of women's issues involvement" when making decisions about the Women's Studies Program. He also said he wants to make the program interdisciplinary, in order to "strengthen the academic focus of the program."
He said they made the decision to change its name to Women's and Gender Studies "to better reflect the issues and intellectual context in which women's studies is currently situated."
Maggiotto explained "the changes are designed to strengthen the program and to broaden its interdisciplinary scope, while emphasizing it is a rigorous and evolving academic program."
Creator of the Facebook group "Protest for Women's Studies Program" Hallie Adams, a 2007 alumna with a degree in communications with a women's studies minor, said she is disappointed no women's studies students, alumni or faculty were on the committee that recommended these changes.
"Our goal is to be visible on campus," Adams said. "Even if the decision is made. We don't want to go down without at least trying."
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