Gender and Women's Studies Update
January 10, 2023
The College of Arts and Sciences remains committed to providing high-quality courses and programs in Gender and Women's Studies, as we have done for decades. To secure the ongoing success and expansion of these programs, we have initiated administrative restructuring, as detailed in the September 16, 2022 message below. This restructuring aims to integrate our Gender and Women's Studies programs and courses into a larger department that not only shares everyone's commitment to the success of GWS but also offers the larger faculty and staff presence needed to sustain a robust slate of GWS programs and courses.
A Letter of Agreement (LOA) signed by the WMU-AAUP and WMU Administration in January 2023 delineates the process that was used to identify a new administrative home for the GWS programs and courses. In April 2023, the GWS faculty recommended the Department of Sociology as a potential home for GWS programs and courses. The Department of Sociology faculty voted in favor of this recommendation in October 2023. As also noted in the LOA, faculty transfer requests will be conducted separately, according to Article 48 of the current WMU-AAUP Agreement.
Following the Faculty Senate Organizational Changes of Academic Units process step 6 guidelines, a proposal to eliminate the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies was submitted to the College of Arts and Sciences curriculum committee in November 2023. A separate proposal to move GWS courses and programs to the Department of Sociology was also submitted in November 2023, according to the Faculty Senate General Principles of Curriculum Change MOA-23/01. The College of Arts and Sciences curriculum committee voted to approve the proposal to move GWS courses and programs to the Department of Sociology and to reject the proposal to eliminate the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies. Both proposals were subsequently approved by the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and have moved forward to the Faculty Senate Executive Committee for consideration. The proposals are currently slated for discussion at their January 12, 2024 meeting. The Executive Committee recommendations will then be moved to the Provost, who will make a final recommendation regarding each proposal to the Board of Trustees.
Past updates
Sept. 16, 2022
The Gender and Women’s Studies faculty, courses and programs have long provided critically important content and educational opportunities for WMU’s students and the broader community. This will continue to be the case as Gender and Women’s Studies (GWS) undergoes a future administrative restructuring in which it will cease to be a stand-alone department with a chair but will otherwise remain unchanged. With this development, GWS will continue as a major and minor, and it will continue to provide the strong curriculum and courses it has always offered. The structural modification is administrative only.
No faculty, part-time instructor or staff lines will be eliminated under the restructuring. We will continue to provide students with access to GWS programs and courses, which will continue to be taught by outstanding faculty and part-time instructors.
WMU first established an interdisciplinary Women’s Studies program in the 1970’s, which was broadened to a Gender and Women’s Studies program in 2007. Faculty from a wide variety of academic units have contributed their scholarly expertise and courses to these programs for decades.
In 2013, the Faculty Senate recommended, and the Board of Trustees approved, a proposal to replace the interdisciplinary Gender and Women’s Studies program with a Department of Gender and Women’s Studies. This change was recommended in recognition that the program had grown to include five Board-approved faculty appointments, with 54 students majoring and 48 students minoring in Gender and Women’s Studies.
Since that time, national searches in 2015 and 2019 resulted in the hires of two faculty with primary appointments in GWS, and two faculty members transferred their primary appointment into GWS from another academic unit in the college. However, of the total nine faculty who have held primary faculty appointments in GWS since it became a department in 2013, seven have subsequently requested that the administration transfer them out of the unit, with only two remaining. Five of these transfers have been granted and approved by the Board of Trustees, and two current requests are in process. In addition, among students, the number of Gender and Women’s Studies majors has declined to 12 as of fall 2022, and the number of student credit hours (SCH) has steadily declined from 7,039 SCH in 2012-13 to 2,616 SCH in 2021-22.
With current faculty requests for immediate, permanent transfer out of GWS and only two faculty lines remaining in the unit, the rationale articulated in 2013 for a stand-alone Gender and Women’s Studies Department has been significantly diminished. CAS is cognizant of concerns that have been articulated regarding efficient investment in administrative overhead. Therefore, while fully retaining the program, the college intends to eliminate the department, and to work with faculty with relevant content expertise from across the university to move the Gender and Women’s Studies major, minor and courses to another existing academic unit for administrative purposes.
With these coming changes, we remain committed to continuing to support these important interdisciplinary programs so that they may thrive and grow at WMU.
Carla Koretsky
Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
Stephanie Peterson
Associate Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
Christopher Cheatham
Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs