The collection of the Department of Women's and Gender Studies (formerly Women's Studies Program and Department of Women's Studies) at the University of Michigan contains a range of records, including administrative files, correspondence, curriculum information, event files, and meeting minutes. The collection documents the founding of the program, program reviews, the Critical Perspectives on Women and Gender series, the Women's Studies Library, and other program activities.
The records were received in two accessions. The original accession records consist of ten series, which are arranged in alphabetical order with the exception of the last, Miscellaneous. Records from the 2009 accession are arranged into seven series: Dean's Office, Executive Committee, Critical Perspectives on Women and Gender, Program Documents, Publications, Women's Studies Library, and Visual Materials.
The movement to establish a women's studies program at the University of Michigan began in the summer of 1972. With funding from the offices of the Women's Advocate and the Advocate for Educational Innovation, Lydia Kleiner, a graduate student in the American Culture program, called together an ad hoc Committee for Women's Studies composed of about twenty students, faculty, staff, and community women. The committee drafted a proposal for a women's studies program, the objectives of which were to foster research and teaching on women and to assist the university in reexamining its curricula; the women active in promoting a women's studies program contended that the existing curricula distorted or ignored the contributions and roles of women.
The proposal was approved by the executive committee of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts in the spring of 1973 to be implemented in the fall of that year. In the meantime, a group of faculty and graduate students volunteered their services to teach the pilot course "Introduction to Women's Studies" (Women's Studies 240), which was first offered in fall term 1972. In 1975 an undergraduate major in Women's Studies was approved. A Graduate Certificate Program was instituted in 1984.
As part of its effort to promote research in the area of women's studies, the program offered a course entitled "Research on Women," which produced a scholarly journal entitled University of Michigan Papers in Women's Studies, with class members serving as the editorial board. The publication was successively renamed Occasional Papers and Michigan Feminist Studies.
The program was initially run by a steering committee that emerged out of the Committee for Women's Studies and was composed of about fifteen members. Membership on the committee, which met weekly, was open to anyone interested in and willing to work for the program; most of the members were graduate students, together with a few faculty members and undergraduates. In 1977 the steering committee became the program committee. The committee was not self-consciously a collective until the late 1970s but the constitution adopted in 1973 reflected the efforts of those involved in the program to make it democratic and non-hierarchical. A new governance model implemented in 1986/87 reaffirmed the program's commitment to collective governance.
In its first years the program had a quarter-time director, Margaret (Peg) Lourie, who also served as half-time secretary. In 1975 the directorship was made a half-time, two-year position. It was filled by Louise Tilly beginning in 1975, Susan Contratto in 1977, and Margot Norris in 1979. In 1979/80 the program was reviewed by the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, with several important changes resulting. The directorship was changed to a directorial pool that would rotate each term, along with a half-time associate director. Furthermore, most courses had been taught by graduate student teaching assistants in the 1970s, but as a consequence of the review, teaching assistants were no longer permitted to teach 300-level courses and an effort was made to involve more faculty members in teaching.
By the late 1970s the program was struggling with the perception that it was marginal to the intellectual life of the university. Over the next decade the program sought increasingly to secure its credibility as an academic unit by establishing an undergraduate major in 1975 and a graduate certificate program in 1984. In 1989 a second internal and external review was undertaken at the request of the program.
In 1990, the program established a directorship and an elected executive committee, appointing Abigail Stewart as Director of the Women's Studies Program until 1995. Abigail Stewart was initially succeeded by Anne C. Herrmann (1995-1996), followed by Sidonie Smith (1996-2000), Pamela Trotman Reid (2001-2003), and Valerie Traub (2003-2007).
The program celebrated its 20th Anniversary in 1992. During 1995, the program established two joint PhD programs in Psychology & Women's Studies and English & Women's Studies, later adding a History & Women's Studies PhD program in 1999 and Sociology & Women's Studies PhD program in 2000. Also in 1995, the Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG) grew out of the program to focus on research by facilitating scholarship and disseminating important findings to the academic and public communities. The program underwent a Program Enhancement Initiative in 1998, allowing the program to initiate position requests and make tenured appointments and then move to its current home at Lane Hall in 2000. In July, 2007, the Women's Studies Program became the Department of Women's Studies, maintaining Valerie Traub as Chair of the Department (2007-2009), succeeded by Elizabeth Cole (2010-current).
In addition to teaching activities, the program established the Women's Studies library in 1979. During the mid-1990s, the library underwent financial difficulties, causing significant changes including selling or withdrawing parts of its collections. The library restructured in 1997, but ultimately was renamed the Women's Studies Reading Room and Resource Center and integrated with the department into Lane Hall. In addition to the library, the program produced a monograph series in conjunction with the University of Michigan Press called the Critical Perspectives on Women and Gender during the 1980s and 1990s. To better promote the series, the program created the Hamilton Prize Competition, which published the winning proposal in the series. In 2007, the program became the Department of Women's Studies. In 2020, it became the Department of Women's and Gender Studies.
Chairs of the Department of Women's Studies and of the Department of Women's and Gender Studies
| Date |
Event |
| 2007-2009 | Valerie Traub |
| 2010-2015 | Elizabeth Cole |
| 2015-2018 | Rosario Ceballo |
| 2018-2019 | Elizabeth R. Wingrove (Interim) |
| 2020- | Ruby C. Tapia |
Name Changes
| Date |
Event |
| 1972-2007 | Women's Studies Program |
| 2007-2020 | Department of Women's Studies |
| 2020- | Department of Women's and Gender Studies |
