Florida Atlantic University's first student-run news source.

UNIVERSITY PRESS

Florida Atlantic University's first student-run news source.

UNIVERSITY PRESS

Florida Atlantic University's first student-run news source.

UNIVERSITY PRESS

Up in arms

The Women’s Studies Center at FAU was on the chopping block this year due to budget cuts, along with 221 other programs. After four months of debates and discussions, it was announced that the program will continue to operate for at least the next two years.

“Even though I’ve graduated now, I’m ecstatic to know that my graduate degree is continuing at FAU because it’s given me so much,” says Katy Smith, a recent graduate of the program and a key supporter in saving it. “It has given me not only a great interdisciplinary and eye-opening graduate education, but also the opportunity to teach at the collegiate level and become a real scholar on my own.”

FAU’s provost, John Pritchett, had the task of cutting $25 million from the university’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year. To help with that, he asked the deans of all the colleges to present ways their programs could be trimmed in order to save money.

Manjunath Pendakur, the dean of the College of Arts and Letters, was among that group, and on Feb. 8 he released his proposal. This outlined a plan to temporarily suspend the women’s studies master’s program as well as absorb the certificate under the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies.

Two days later, several students, including Smith, established a Facebook group known as “Save the Women’s Studies Center and M.A. Program at FAU!” and posted a petition online to save the master’s degree.

“Women have fought hard to earn their rightful place in society in general and the academy in particular. To allow this suspension to occur would be a slap in the face to every women’s rights advocate in American history,” the program’s petition states. “We refuse to allow the ‘budget decisions’ of the administration at FAU to take any of this space away from women.”

Shortly after the release of Pendakur’s proposal, students and advocates of the program wondered whether this proposal could be seen as the university directly attacking women.
“The new dean very directly targeted women’s studies as one of his major footprints as the new dean of Arts and Letters,” says Stacy Grossman, an adjunct professor on the Port St. Lucie campus. “I liken what he had intended to do as him destroying something small just to show his power. We were an Area 52 to his atom bomb testing.”

However, Pritchett denies any such claims on behalf of Pendakur and says that he wasn’t opposed to the program. He says that it was simply one of the programs flagged for low enrollment and graduates.

“I’m insulted anyone would say that. Anyone who has worked with me for the last 40 years knows me better than that. I can say the same for [Pendakur],” says Pritchett. “He has impeccable integrity. And as far as I am concerned, diversity is a core value of this university.”

After the initial reaction, the women’s studies program made it clear that they weren’t backing down, and debates regarding the budget cuts began between Pritchett, Pendakur, students and Josephine Beoku- Betts, the interim director of the program.

During those four months of debates, Beoku-Betts spent time putting together a presentation detailing how the program could exist and cost less than it has previously.
“We have to provide our own funding for our students. But we have a strong program and good support from our faculty associates who would contribute where they could to keep women’s studies afloat,” Beoku-Betts says.

Due to this, and despite the fact that the program could have saved FAU money, an agreement was reached and a compact was created that outlined conditions the program would have to abide by for the next year.

This compact allows the Women’s Studies Center to continue for the next two years, but cuts both the operating expense budget and teaching assistantships by 50 percent. The department also promises to create an advisory board and a “Friends of Women’s Studies” membership system as part of an ongoing effort to obtain donations and increase enrollment.

The faculty are also committed to raising a supplemental amount of $7,000 for operating expenses by fall 2009. Beoku-Betts is hoping to receive donations for the expenses through the FAU Foundation, with women’s studies outlined as the recipient.

She is also working to fulfill the three conditions, given by Pritchett, that the program must meet by its annual review next year. It must increase outside financial support, the number of students enrolled in the undergraduate and graduate programs and the number of degrees awarded each year.
“It is a tall order for one year, but the provost was very, very supportive and considerate and fair working with us. I commend him for that,” Beoku-Betts says.

The support from the community that the program received, independent of the teachers and the administration, was much larger than the number of graduates since the master’s program began. The program has had an average of only four graduates each year. However, there were 1,719 signatures on the petition that was submitted to Pritchett. The program’s alumni have a strong connection with their alma mater and were happy to hear it would remain one of the university’s degrees offered.

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