Women's Studies Task Force

The Women's Studies Task Force, a student group, was formed as an operational group of the Women's Resource Center (WRC) in February, 1979. Faith Reidenbach, a member of the Center, served as the group's first chair, and other WRC members formed the bulk of the initial membership of the Task Force. In 1979, the Women's Resource Center (chartered by the College in 1973) supported three task forces, the other two being the ERA Task Force and the Health Task Force.

The Women's Studies Task Force was formed at a crucial time in the history of the development of women's studies at Smith College. The Task Force, like its parent organization, the WRC, played a vitally instrumental, if little recognized role in providing impetus towards a formal women's studies program at the College. The Task Force was formed under the 'pledge' of the WRC to "work with the CEP [Committee on Educational Policy] for as many years as it takes to persuade the administration to recognize a formal women's studies program" (WRC Newsletter, Feb. 16, 1979).

Prior to 1979, women's studies courses at Smith College, instituted formally by a CEP mandate in 1974, were integrated into the various traditional academic departments, for reasons both practical and philosophical (with the latter, much discussion in academia at the time centered around concerns that formal women's studies programs would 'ghetto-ize' women in the curriculum). With the arrival of Jill Ker Conway in 1975 as president, a focus on women's issues and needs in general, as well as within the College curriculum, gained attention and funding. In 1978, President Conway obtained the first of a series of significant grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to form the Project on Women and Social Change, a multi-year research program. This project was funded in answer to a proposal for the creation of a women's studies research center as a part of the College, an idea that was resisted by the majority of the faculty and rejected by the faculty Committee on Research on the Study of Women.

Involved in this committee and in the Women and Social Change Project was Professor Marilyn Schuster of the French Department, also a member of the Committee to Review the Curriculum for the CEP. Professor Schuster was also a part of the initial meeting of the Women's Studies Task Force, as was Professor Susan Van Dyne of the English Department. Both professors acted as mentors to the group. In the spring of 1980, Professors Schuster and Van Dyne recommended, without success, the formation of an ad hoc or advisory committee on Women's Studies to the CEP and the Committee on Committees, with the support of the Women's Studies Task Force. No further records of Task Force activity beyond this time are apparent.

The matter of women's studies was taken up the next academic year by the Project on Women and Social Change Curriculum Group, for which Professor Schuster wrote proposals to coordinate the current women's courses through additional text in the handbook and in student advising. The Committee on Women's Studies was formed in 1982 following a renewed proposal by Professor Schuster and further action in November, 1982, by the WRC in the form of an 'open discussion' on options for women's studies in which both President Conway and Professor Schuster spoke, as well as other key faculty members. A minor in Women's Studies was instituted in 1984 and a major in 1987.

The Women's Studies Task Force's main accomplishment and contribution to the process of formalizing women's studies at Smith College was its research work, primarily accomplished during the Interterm Project it was awarded by the Student Government Association in January, 1980.

From the guide to the Women's Studies Task Force Collection RG 80., 1979-1980, (Smith College Archives)