Minutes
Women’s Studies Department
September 20, 2012
Present: Lauren Smith, Ellie Schemenauer, Jo Ellen Burkholder, Amber Moulton, Crystal
Aschenbrener, Alison Townsend, Geneva Moore, Zohreh Ghavamshahidi
Approval of minutes – approved by acclamation
Announcements
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The diversity forum will be Sept 27, 28
Monique Liston was been hired to teach GENED 130
Committee Reports
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International Education (Ellie Schemenauer) The global engagement certificate has had a
“soft launch” this semester. Anne Hamilton is working on project and advising materials
to facilitate the study abroad process.
WIC (Lauren Smith) There were many new members at the first meeting. There was a
discussion on how global studies fits in with diversity studies.
Assessment – Ellie distributed curricular maps. She asked each instructor to identify
whether the objectives are met, and if so, at what level (introductory, advanced, etc.).
She also mapped the LEAP objectives with the department objectives, which were very
similar.
Curriculum – Ellie discussed how to identify a “writing intensive” course, and distributed
a report from the curriculum sub-committee. Student writing must be improved, and the
committee has made recommendations. Ellie thinks that most of our WS classes would
fit the definition of “writing intensive” (3500-4000 words). Zohreh asked if this applies
to classes of 15 students or more, and suggested lowering the cap on these classes. The
committee also discussed whether exams should count toward the total number of words.
Old Business
 Course rotation - tabled
New Business
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Gender and Ethnic Studies minor – shortly after the minor was set up, Gene Grigsby left
for Africa, and because of the absence of two of the professors who were involved in the
online portion (Rebecca Shrum and John Valadez), it didn’t function as an online minor,
which was the original intention. This is a problem for when we do audit and review, so
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Lauren will talk to Greg Cook to see if the audit and review “clock” can be stopped
temporarily.
How to allocate foundation funds – Ruth Schauer would like these funds (about $500
annually) to be used for student activities such as conferences, field trips, and service
learning projects. Lauren said that funds are needed for service learning, but a potential
problem would be working a service learning class into the rotation. Ellie said she is
working with Deilee Calvert-Minor (who is administrating the community based learning
fellows) to revise Women and Work to include a community based learning project.
Faculty input and collaboration – Sandra Steingraber is coming to campus on Thursday,
November 29th. She is speaking at 7:00pm in the U.C., and will also come to Alison’s
WS 481 class.
Approval Donald Jellerson CV & possible cross-listing of “Film Studies: Gender in
Classical Hollywood Cinema” – the faculty would like to invite Donald to become a
Women’s Studies faculty member, and approved the film studies class for cross-listing if
the opportunity becomes available.
Women & Violence – The college could not support the Women and Violence class at
this time, but Mary (Pinkerton) said they may be able to offer it later. Zohreh suggested
cross-listing the class with another department. Crystal talked about the SA reporting
language.
Coordinating scheduling with other departments - tabled
Recruitment – Lauren discussed her experience of how small departments are discussed
in administrative meetings. Departments must have enough minors to justify their
existence. Lauren talked about the prior learning class and how it affects a relatively
small group. Women’s Studies numbers suffer because many students come into the
program as juniors and seniors, so they can only be counted for two years. Off-campus
recruitment through the PLA program was suggested. The WS department will be
sending recruitment letters to students in WS intro classes who received good grades.
The new LGBT and Intergroup Coordinators (Cindy and Mai Yer) would like to work
with women’s studies.
Respectfully submitted,
Kathy Fellows