Gender studies plans Ph.D. program

When Suzanna Walters trekked from Georgetown University to Bloomington to chair IU's gender studies department, she came in search of greener pastures.\nWalters did not come without ambitions. By fall 2006, she hopes IU will have the nation's first doctoral degree program in gender studies.\n"The faculty here is phenomenal," she said. "There is wonderful feminist scholarship going on here. This was an opportunity I couldn't pass up."\nAlthough the idea has been in the works for about five years, she said, the hurdles ahead of her could be easily jumped with the proper support from state officials.\nFor the Ph.D. program to be passed, Walters and the gender studies department will need the approval of three major bodies -- the University, the IU board of trustees and the Indiana Commission for Higher Education.\n"We're not anticipating any resistance to this plan," she said. "Everyone in the administration seems to be behind this. I wouldn't have come from Georgetown if they weren't."\nWhile several universities around the U.S. have women's studies Ph.D. programs, no college in the nation offers a gender studies Ph.D. \nWalters said IU has about 70 undergraduate students studying in gender studies, along with about 15 doctorate students pursuing minor degrees from the department.\n"The next natural step is to launch a doctorate program," she said.\nIU's first gender studies program was conceived in 1973 -- when it was known as the Women's Studies Program -- in response to a nation-wide feminism movement. The name was changed to gender studies in 1997 to "recognize formally its more comprehensive attention to women, men and various aspects of gender," according to the IU gender studies Web site. The first B.A. degree in gender studies was offered in the fall of 1997.\nIn spring 2001, the gender studies program was transformed into a full department. According to the department's mission statement, IU gender studies officials' ultimate goal is to "undertake critical interdisciplinary scrutiny of masculinity and femininity in ways consonant with the field's feminist origins."\nWalters called gender studies the "ultimate interdisciplinary analytical category," which defines identity, power and status, questions of intimacy, family, and sexuality.\n"It is one of the most fundamental tools through which we know ourselves," she said. "It's an amazing lens through which to understand relations of both institutional and personal power."\nBefore Walters came to IU in June, she was the women's studies chair at Georgetown. Despite the move from the nation's capital, she said her work at IU has been rewarding. \n"I love it here," she said. "I've never worked so hard in my life. It's an amazingly collegial and accessible environment. It's just a supportive and warm place to work."\n-- Contact senior writer Rick Newkirk at renewkir@indiana.edu.