OSU to launch doctorate program in women’s studies

COLUMBUS -- Just five years after observing its 25th anniversary as one of the country’s oldest and most established programs of its kind, The Ohio State University Department of Women’s Studies is poised to celebrate another pioneering move: creation of a Ph.D. program.

The Board of Trustees on Friday (2/1) approved establishment of the Ph.D. program in women’s studies, which now is subject to final approval by the Ohio Board of Regents. Ohio State’s will be the first women’s studies department in Ohio to offer study at the Ph.D. level, and becomes one of only about 10 such programs in North America. Pending regents’ approval, the first class is scheduled to begin in autumn 2002.

Ohio State also is the first university to build its Ph.D. program upon existing bachelor’s and master’s degree programs, said Valerie B. Lee, professor and chair of the Department of Women’s Studies. “This says something – we have a foundation, and we’re building upon our strength. If anyone can establish a first-rate Ph.D. program, it’s Ohio State.”

Ohio State’s department enjoys a strong national reputation. Though the field is not yet ranked by such ratings tools as U.S. News & World Report magazine or the National Research Council, Ohio State recently was listed among six featured master’s programs in the Lingua Franca Real Guide to Grad School, and was the only U.S. program cited in Women’s Studies International: Nairobi and Beyond. OSU faculty were instrumental in organizing the first national conference on the Ph.D. in women’s studies in October, and are known widely for their development of an electronic database of more than 400 articles from which texts for undergraduate women’s studies and gender-related courses can be custom designed. About 75 institutions have adopted Reading Women’s Lives, the database-generated texts.

In addition, because of its comparatively large faculty with diverse and interdisciplinary specialties, Ohio State will offer one of the most comprehensive curriculums of the Ph.D. programs established so far in the United States and Canada. With eight of its faculty on 100 percent appointments, Ohio State has the most full-time faculty lines of any similar program in the United States. Another seven faculty are jointly appointed with such units as history, nursing, English, human and community resource development, and French and Italian.

Ohio State’s department emerged early on as a strong program because of its emphasis on an interdisciplinary approach to teaching and learning, said Lee. For example, the department’s foundational courses for graduate education are structured so that all students study theory over three broad categories: difference/diversity; gender, power and social change; and gender representation. “Other programs in our field respect the way we conceptualize and represent categories of knowledge,” Lee said, adding that newer programs are following Ohio State’s model.

Yet another distinctive feature of Ohio State’s graduate education in women’s studies is the full funding of all graduate students – which will include doctoral candidates. In an era of cuts to higher education, being able to provide such a financial package is an attractive feature in recruiting students. It also shows departmental commitment, Lee said.

Ohio State’s program will prepare future scholars for an increasing number of academic positions in the field and create a larger pool of researchers and practitioners to provide gender-related information, analyses and services to public and private agencies and institutions.

Initially, there will be between four to six openings in the Ph.D. program. Already, applicants are calling, some from as far away as Puerto Rico, the Ukraine and China. Chances are good that those who complete Ohio State’s program will do well in the market. In the last four years, more than 180 scholars have been sought to fill positions in women’s studies programs, but fewer than 20 women’s studies Ph.D.s have been produced to satisfy that demand.

The program’s establishment continues Ohio State’s participation in development of a discipline that got its start as a field of inquiry just 30 years ago. Ohio State dates the launch of women’s studies at the university to 1972; functioning first as an office and then as a center, it received departmental status in 1995. The bachelor’s degree program began in 1980, and the first master’s degree class signed on in 1991. The department currently has about 150 majors, 120 minors and 30 master’s students.

Initially founded to fill the gaps in knowledge about women, the discipline has broadened to consider gender’s interlocking relationship with race, ethnicity, sexuality, geographic location and class.

“We’re interested in gender as a starting point,” Lee said, “not an ending point.”