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Judith Allen
By Jeff Austin
The Indiana Commission for Higher Education (HEC) has approved a new Indiana University bachelor of arts degree in gender studies to be offered on the Bloomington campus beginning with the fall 1997 semester. Courses in gender studies will be taught through the Women's Studies Program, which has been part of the College of Arts and Sciences since the early 1970s.
The new degree is titled "gender studies" instead of "women's studies" because the curriculum provides students with a solid understanding of ways in which gender issues involve not only the study of women, but, as centrally, the study of men, families, organizations, economies, science, sports, leisure, religion and many other areas relevant to future careers.
To date, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne has been the only institution in Indiana that offered a bachelor of arts in women's studies.
"Our faculty and students are very excited about this important milestone in our history," said Judith Allen, director of the Women's Studies Program.
"A major demarginalizes the study of gender, sending students the message that the university takes this area of intellectual and scholarly inquiry as seriously as other areas with majors."
To meet the degree requirements for the new major in gender studies at IU, students will have to complete 27 credit hours of coursework from a set of 18 classes, all of which are offered through the Women's Studies Program on the Bloomington campus. Other required arts and sciences courses account for an additional 95 credit hours.
The current Women's Studies Program, which offers undergraduate and doctoral minors as well as area certificates, has an enrollment of about 500, a number that grew by 46 percent between 1993 and 1996. Students who take women's studies courses enter career fields as diverse as human resources management, law enforcement, journalism, education, medicine and advertising.
"We've been studying our clientele and have found that a significant number of our students come from outside the arts and sciences‹from education and business, for instance," Allen said. "We're hoping to be a resource not only within the College of Arts and Sciences, but to the university as a whole. We want to build as many bridges as possible."