A press release from Yale University:

Women's Studies to Broaden Scope, Adding Tenured Professor

New Haven, Conn. 4/21/98 -- The Yale University Women's Studies Program announces two changes, effective with the academic year 1998-99, the program's 20th anniversary.

The program will be renamed "Women's and Gender Studies," and its undergraduate major will be reorganized into three tracks: Women's Studies; Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studies; and Gender Studies. The three tracks recognize distinct areas of scholarship now being pursued by students and faculty, as well as a growing abundance of pertinent courses offered by other departments and programs. The expansion is made possible especially by the presence on campus of the Stephen T. Baker Lesbian and Gay Studies visiting faculty member, the position to be held in 1998-99 by Professor Alexandra Chasin of Boston College.

"What began in the 1970s as the study principally of women's historical, social, and cultural experiences -- a field that was needed to supplement the almost total absence of women from serious scholarly inquiry -- has now broadened significantly," said Margaret Homans, chair of the program. "The field now centers on the study of gender and sexuality as primary modes of social differentiation that are both historically constructed and active in producing patterns of power, including the patterns of exclusion that originally created the need for Women's Studies programs."

Under its new name, the Women's and Gender Studies Program will retain its traditional strengths in scholarship on women through the Women's Studies track, while creating new opportunities to study the ways gender and sexuality organize human societies and cultures. The track in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studies analyzes the experiences of people of nonconforming sexualities and genders and explores new critical perspectives on sexuality as a complex cultural, social, biological and historical phenomenon. The Gender Studies track focuses on how masculinity and femininity as social categories structure patterns of power. All three tracks will continue to emphasize the interplay of gender and sexuality with race, class and ethnicity.

The program is also pleased to announce the arrival on campus in September of Marianne LaFrance, professor of Women's and Gender Studies and of psychology. A distinguished social psychologist who investigates experimentally how gender is produced in social interactions, she will be the first professor to hold a tenured position in the program at Yale. Professor LaFrance taught at Boston College for 24 years before accepting the position at Yale.
 

More . . .

The above-described plans are apparently not without controversy. A May 7 AP story by Brigitte Greenberg -- "Yale University is Getting a Sex Change" -- focused on the different points of view.

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In the "conservative" camp, Ms. Greenberg quoted an alumnus, a student, and a classics professor on the theme that Yale is heading in the wrong direction.

Richard E. Hart, a 1950 graduate, called the curriculum an "embarrassment" and thought it would curtail alumni donations. He said it was "more evidence of a focus on frills and currently politically correct, fad-type study,"

According to Lila Arzua, 21, a student from Miami, it's "an affront to traditional education. What's happening is there are specialized weirdo classes taking the place of foundational classes."

History and classics professor Donald Kagan, with 29 years at Yale, and a world authority on the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, said "Universities are often reacting to elements that the society is concerned with and not focusing on what our students need to learn. We have consistently avoided that fact as a faculty since I've been here."

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On the side of the proponents, Ms. Greenberg quoted Margaret Homans, the program head. "You get this all the time from the academic right. It will attract criticism, but we're kind of used to that," Homans said. "No human experience should be beyond the realm of serious scholarship."

Chrysanthi Settlage, a student interested in how biology and environment affect gender, said "Interdisciplinary fields historically have been seen as frill, at least in their initial stages. It just takes time to establish it, but I have confidence that it will find its place,"

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Last summer, there had been controversy over the University turning down a $5 million endowment for a professorship in gay studies from the writer Larry Kramer, AIDS activist and Yale alumnus. But according to Ms. Greenberg: "Yale said that the changes were unrelated to the furor over Kramer's offer and that they are aimed at drawing more students into the field. In past years, only six or seven students per year have majored in women's studies."

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