The Women’s Studies (WMS) program grew out of classes taught by faculty in other departments. The first course that focused on “the lives, experiences, and culture of women” was offered in Spring of 1972 by Judith Anderson and Sharon Strom with twenty other faculty members acting as teachers, visiting lecturers, or panelists. An early product of women’s studies at URI was a bibliography of library resources, first distributed by Bernice Lott in 1977 and updated in following years.
In 1978, the core courses in Women’s Studies were approved, and the first person to declare a major in WMS graduated in 1979. In 1980, the degree was formally approved by the Board of Governors. By 1985, a full-time coordinator was appointed to the program for the first time, and a committee started meeting to discuss the possibility of developing a master’s program. However, it wasn’t until 1991 that the first tenure-track faculty member, Dana Shugar, was assigned to Women’s Studies in a joint appointment with English. (An annual spring colloquium was established in honor of Shugar, who died in 2000 after a long battle with cancer.)
During the 1980s, Mary Ellen Reilly, the Women’s Studies coordinator, focused on expanding the program by raising awareness. At the same time, she and other women on campus were involved in securing funding for a women’s center, which opened its doors in 1982. (It was originally located in the Memorial Union; it moved to its current location on Upper College Road in 2002.) In 1985, Women’s Studies courses were first offered at CCE, and in 1987, the program initiated a lecture series and an advisory council of volunteers from the community. In September of that year, the program moved from the basement to the third floor of Roosevelt Hall, and a graduate assistant and secretary were added the next year. During the 1990s, the program distinguished itself by offering film series, externships, scholarships, and an essay contest.
Two major endowments have contributed to the growth of the Women’s Studies program. In 1980, a benefactor set up a fund for the Fredrika Wild Schweers Memorial Lecture in Women’s Health, and in 1988, Eleanor Carlson set up a million dollar endowment that eventually provided an endowed chair, scholarships, lectures, and library resources. In 1996, Dr. Donna M. Hughes was appointed as the first Carlson Endowed Chair.
The following chronology is an excerpt from the old Women's Studies website:
As part of her endowment given out of "a deep interest in, and a great passion for, matters which affect the status of women in our society," Eleanor M. Carlson provided a $15,000 endowment to the URI Women's Program. Income from the endowment is used to bring to the university distinguished lecturers whose scholarship is related to the field of Women's Studies.
Each April, the Women's Studies Program presents a recognized expert in the field of women's health. The endowment was established in memory of Fredrika Wild Schweers, a sixteen-year-old woman who died after a thirteen year battle with leukemia. The don or, the late Patricia M. Farnes, M.D., also died of cancer in 1985. This lecture has become one of the most important community events sponsored by the URI Women's Studies Program.
A Series of presentations by various URI scholars on their work about women's and men's lives.
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Records of Women's Studies, Rec. Gr. 110, University of Rhode Island.
The Women’s Studies (WMS) collection was transferred to the Archives in 2005.
The collection is arranged into two series as follows:
The Women’s Studies (WMS) collection was transferred to the University Archives in 2005.
The materials were processed 2006 by Emily Brown.
Finding aid prepared by Emily Brown.
Finding aid encoded by Yuan Li on 2007 Nov 5
Finding aid updated by Erin C. Mullen on 2012 Apr 02
The Records of the Women’s Studies (WMS) program include annual reports, budgets, and correspondence of the coordinators. There are meeting minutes from both the Advisory Committee, which proposed the original Women’s Studies program, and the Women’s Council, which included off-campus community members in planning and initiating programs for women.
This series also provides information about courses included in the WMS program and initiatives ranging from a masters program to a feminist research center. Some of the earliest documents available are the original WMS bibliography and the proposals for the Bachelor’s Degree in WMS. The series contains some of the Women’s Studies newsletters. A more complete set is cataloged in the University Archives.
The materials in this series are arranged alphabetically by title and chronologically within folders.
The Women’s Studies department has been bringing speakers to the campus since 1980, when the department hosted the New England Women’s Studies Association Annual Conference. The Fredrika Wild Schweers Memorial Lecture in Women’s Health was established the same year, and in 1987, the department began planning a series of lectures for each semester. (The subject file contains further information about the planning of these lecture series.)
In 1995, money from the Carlson endowment was used to start another annual lecture. At the same time, the Women’s Studies department supported interdisciplinary lectures like the honors colloquium and shared the costs of visiting scholars with other departments. A timeline of Women’s Studies lectures and other events is available in Appendix A.
This series contains press kits, flyers, itineraries, and correspondence between the Women’s Studies coordinator, speakers, and other departments on campus.
The materials in this series are arranged alphabetically by the speaker’s last name and chronologically within folders.