Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.). Organization of Women Faculty

The Organization of Women Faculty (OWF) was established in February 1981 by a unanimous vote of more than thirty Northwestern University women faculty. Efforts to launch such an organization, however, started in the late 1960's.   

Organizing efforts began in 1969 with an ad-hoc committee of faculty and graduate women who studied the status of women at Northwestern University. The Committee examined the progress of the University's Affirmative Action Plan and proposed the creation of a women's studies program, which became the Program on Women after approval by the University Senate in 1971. Other work consisted of the study of faculty salaries beginning in 1978 and the implementation of a women's studies curriculum which had been approved by the CAS faculty in 1979.

Concern about the future of the Committee's efforts prompted a call for a formal organization of faculty women, which in February 1981, became the Organization of Women Faculty. Janet Abu-Lughod and Jenny Mansbridge were the first Co-Chairs of OWF. Subsequent meetings implemented a study of the high turnover rate of women faculty at Northwestern and addressed concern over seeming discrimination against retired faculty women by the TIAA-CREF Retirement Plan. OWF also drafted documents elaborating measures to be taken in cases of sexual harassment and worked to sensitize appropriate University officials to the effects of their actions upon women faculty.