Minutes of the meeting of the Women’s Studies Program of the UW Colleges

Meeting date and place: September 12, 2008, UW-Marathon County, Wausau, Wisconsin.

Program members present: Paisley Harris, Lisa Schreibersdorf, Barb Reinhardt, Annette Kuhlmann, Nancy Chick, Holly Hassel (program director), Amy Reddinger, Janet LaBrie, Maureen Crowley, Elizabeth Zanichkowsky, Connie Sexauer, and Kat Becker.

Program affiliates present: Doug Hosler

The meeting began around 10:00 am with two fifteen-minute breaks and a working lunch and ended around 2:30 pm with different groups working on developing course guidelines for WOM courses.

In the morning there was extensive discussion of the Program Bylaws. 

1)      Moved by Elizabeth/seconded by Nancy that we accept the Program Bylaws as revised in the morning session (these to be sent out by Holly).  The motion passed 11 yes – 0 no – 0 abstain.

Discussion of membership on the committees resulted in the following slate:

a)     Executive Committee (in addition to the program director)

i)                   Paisley Harris

ii)                Annette Kuhlmann

iii)              Elizabeth Zanichkowsky

b)     Curriculum and Assessment Committee

i)                   Nancy Chick

ii)                Janet LaBrie

iii)              Amy Reddinger

c)      Departmental Assessment Coordinator (Chair of the Curriculum and Assessment Committee)

     Nancy Chick and Amy Reddinger agreed to split this if need be.  They would have further discussion with each other about that.  At the time of the meeting it looked as though Amy would be DAC by herself with Nancy helping her get started.

2)     Paisley moved and Janet seconded that we cast a unanimous ballot for the members of the positions listed above.  The motion passed 11-0-0.

From 12:45 to 1:45 pm assessment issues were discussed. 

3)     The consensus was that the assessment performance indicator for all stand-alone Women’s Studies courses would be: “After taking any course in Women’s Studies students will understand the interrelationship of gender and social structure.”

4)     An assessment rubric for this performance indicator was developed the meeting.  It was understood that Holly will send it around by email and that it will be forwarded to the Curriculum and Assessment Committee to examine.

The requirements for the Women’s Studies Certificate were discussed.

5)     Barb moved and Paisley seconded that we combine the Fine Arts and Humanities categories in the list of requirements.  The motion passed 11-0-0

There was discussion of professional development guidelines.

6)     The consensus was the professional development work that we fund should be clearly focused on women’s studies issues and not just be related to those issues in a tangential way.

There was expression of concern that campus representatives often don’t know what Women’s Studies courses are being offered on that campus.

7)     It was agreed that we need to establish WS campus representatives on a number of campuses and that Holly will take suggestions at the meeting and work on getting WS campus representatives at all thirteen campuses.

There is discussion of two Colleges campuses that seem hostile to women’s studies courses and how we can deal with that.

There was expression of concern that many courses are taught that can be cross-listed as Women Studies and are not.

There was expression of concern that there is no real Women’s Studies oversight on cross-listed courses.

Minutes submitted by Doug Hosler