A Department At Last

After thirty years of what its head, Anne Sisson Runyan, calls “agitating inside and outside the academy,” the Center for Women's Studies has officially received department status.

Runyan notes that the department and its many supporters, including its core and affiliate faculty, students, friends, and alumni, “worked long and hard toward this goal of full recognition for one of the most established and nationally recognized programs in the country and for acknowledgment of the importance of studying women's perspectives and gender issues for critical thinking and social change.”

The department is noted for its path breaking MA and graduate certificate in women's studies, unique MA/JD joint degree in women's studies law, and most recently its rigorous major and minor programs. It was recently honored with a FIPSE grant for its project “Women's Human Rights, Citizenships, and Identities in a North American Context.” This will support student and faculty exchanges with Canadian and Mexican women's and gender studies programs.

“We will celebrate this long overdue rite/right of passage at our annual awards ceremony on May 6, 2005,” Runyan wrote in the department's fall newsletter. “It's an achievement on behalf of all UC women, who are welcome to join us!”