25 Years of Struggle and Achievement Remembered

Mildred Munday Recalls the Beginning (1972-1975)

section written by Mildred Munday
Dr. Mildred Munday was a faculty member in the Department of English. She was instrumental in establishing Women's Studies at The Ohio State University.

Recalling the ambiance of the early 1970s evokes both joy and incredulity. Only then could Women's Studies have been envisioned. The under-thirty crowd were determined to change the face of the University and, ultimately, of the world. Large numbers of students contested the concept of the University, declaring themselves "on strike" and circulating long lists of "non-negotiable demands," some well-founded, some a little silly.

A couple of modest items relating to women were added as afterthoughts: the establishment of a day-care center, and the inclusion of women and their issues in some undergraduate courses.

By 1970, a few scattered courses in various departments already contained references to feminism and to the dominance of patriarchy. The faculty teaching such courses worked alone until Barbara Rigney, inventor of one of the earliest OSU women's studies courses, "Women Writers," gathered them all together for a one-day conference under the aegis of the Division of Comparative Literature. The participation of panelists and audience resulted in the establishment of an informal, fluid group of faculty and graduate and undergraduate students, collectively self-designated as "The Ad Hoc Committee for Women's Studies."

The Ad Hoc Committee for Women's Studies

The Ad Hoc Committee was self-selected and self-motivated. Nobody issued orders charging an appointed group to look into this new concept; nobody got a reduced teaching load to allow time and energy for four-hour meetings two or three times weekly. There was no effort to keep the meetings a secret, but on the other hand the participants did not "go public" until a thirty-page proposal outlining the desirability, viability, and structure of a Center for Women's Studies was completed. Reporting to the Provost, the envisioned freestanding center would conduct academic programs, create or revise courses, and coordinate the work of a director, staff, and associated faculty.

The fluidity of the Ad Hoc Committee was constant during the two years it took to write the proposal. There was no formal chairperson; members formed subcommittees or followed their own individual interests and expertise. Reports were neatly composed or scribbled by hand, depending on the availability of typewriters and copying machines. The completed proposal was a compilation of the work of various members of the Committee, and included a comprehensive definition of women's studies and a study of how a center would fit the administrative structure of the University and interact with various departments.

The vast array of reports was edited and integrated by Pam Unger, a graduate student in English and one of the strongest and most clear-headed members of the Committee. Defining and Defending Women's Studies

Actually, the four-hour meetings involved much more than putting together a curriculum for a quasi-department. The Committee had no models; other universities might have had women's studies units at that time, but we found none that seemed locally appropriate. Mention of women's studies around the campus brought wide-eyed incomprehension, sometimes ridicule, and occasionally a glimmer of recognition, as in "Oh, you mean like black studies?"

At meetings of the Committee, great blocks of time were spent defining and discussing feminism, how to involve the community, even who the community was. We asked ourselves: should women's studies be associated only loosely with the University, totally integrated, or vaguely allied with Arts and Sciences? What attributes did women's studies courses require: content that included women? an emphasis on women? a feminist method of instruction? all three? Did mentioning women occasionally turn an existing course into a women's studies course? (Some of our male colleagues thought so.)

Finally, the thirty-page proposal was ready for distribution to the Provost and the Committee on Academic Affairs, and two-page summaries were sent to departmental chairs, with letters soliciting support. Approbation was not universal, but visits to departments were conducted with solemnity and straight-faced efforts to deal with questions like "Isn't this sort of thing divisive?" "What about men's studies?" "How about gender studies?" "What are other universities, like Michigan, doing about this?"

The Office of Women's Studies

In 1975, Academic Affairs and the Trustees expeditiously approved the establishment of an Office of Women's Studies that would work toward qualifying as a center. The Ad Hoc Committee dissolved and reemerged as a search committee for the nationwide recruitment of candidates for the position of a permanent director.

With few exceptions, none of the members had been on a search committee before. As a result of miscommunication, the three carefully chosen outside candidates withdrew in confusion, leaving Pam Unger the difficult task of guiding the early steps of the new Office as its first acting director.

While the Ad Hoc Committee worked toward creating a place for women's studies at the University, other women also contributed to the establishment of women's studies. OSU librarians, beginning with Beth McNeer, Kitty Moshell, and Kathy Fennessy, published Women Are Human (1972-1979), a biweekly annotated bibliography named after Dorothy Sayer's essay in response to Freud, providing news on books by and about women. The first such review in the United States, Women Are Human helped to publicize and support the work of the Office of Women's Studies.

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