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HE 013 353
Reuben, Elaine: Strauss, Mary JO BoehmWomen's Studies Graduates.Department of Education, Washington, D.C.; Nationalinst. of Education (DHEW), Washington, D.C.Sep 80NIE-P-79-0011188p.Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government PrintingOffice, Washington, DC 20402
MF01/PC08 Plus Postage.Bachelors Degrees; *Career Awareness; CareerDevelopment: *College Graduates: Doctoral Degrees;Educational Certificates; *Education WorkRelationship; *Employment.Opportunities; *Females:Followup Studies: Graduate Surveys; Higher Education;Majors (Students); Masters Degrees; Nonmajors.Research Needs: *Womens Studies
ABSTRACTinformation on graduates of women's studies programs
was collected-and assessed. Women's studies graduates are defined asthose students who have completed requirements for a postsecondarydegree, certificate, or other form of academic certification inwomen's studies. Of the approximately 300 programs contacted,responses were received from 66. Informatlon was supplied by 37percent of --the-Nomen's studies programs ciliring some type ofcredential, and only 22 percent of these contributed quantitativedata. The institutions that kept data on women's studies alumnae andcontributed this information provided followup information for only35 percent of these graduates. Information is presented on the B.A.,M.A., and Ph.D. degrees in women's studies and on graduates withcertificates or minors in women's studies. In order tO providebackground and context for the data, a brief review is presented onthe impact of women's studies programs on student career awarenessand development, employment opportunities for women's studiesstudents, and research and student evaluation of the contributionsmade by women's studies to students' career competencies.Recommendations, a bibliography, and appendices are included.Appended materials include: data from the National Center forEducation Statistics on earned degrees conferred in women's studies,1975-77: a directory of institutions that offer women's studiesminors, certificates, and degrees; an examination of the reliabilityof followup information on women's studies graduates; practicumsselected by graduates of George Washington University Women's StudiesM.A. degree program: and a list of occupational opportunities. (SW)
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WOMEN'S STUDIES GRADUATES
Elaine Reuben and Mary Jo Boehm StraussNational Women's Studies Association
U S DEPARTMENT OF NEALTPLEDUCATION 6 WELFARENATIONAL INSTITUTE OF
EDUCATION
THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRO-DUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROMTHE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGIN-ATING IT POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONSSTATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REFIRE-SENT OFFICIAL NATIONAL INSTITUTE OFEDUCAT-ON POSITION OR POLICY
U.S. Department of EducationShirley M. Hufstedier, SecretarySteven A. Minter, Under Secretary
Office of Educational Research and ImprovementF. James Rutherford, Assistant Secretary
National Institute of EducationP. Michael Timpane, Director
Program on Teaching and LearningLois -elfin Datta, Associate Director
September 1980
2
This study was conducted for the National Instituteof Education under purchase order number NIE-P-79-0011. The opinions expressed in this report do notnecessarily reflect NIE position or policy, and noofficial endorsement by NIE should be inferred.
PREFACE
This monograph is part of a series of eight,commissioned by the National institute of Education
,
(NIE), following recommendations presented in SevenYears Later: Women's_Studies Frog rams in 1976 byFlorence Howe.
Seven Yearn Later was commissioned and publishedby the National Advisory Council on Women's Educa-tional Programs. It was the first federally financedinvestigation of women's studies. Howe visited andreported on 15 mature women's studies programs, in thecontext oi national trends and directions withinwomen's studies. She focused on some areas (fundingand faculty, for example, in 4-year colleges anduniversities) and excluded others (commut try colleges,
for example) entirely.
The eight new monographs take up some of thequestions Howe explored; they also initiate explora-tions of untouched areas. All-are concerned primarilywith higher education.
Each monograph reviews literature relevant to itsfocus produced during this first decade of women'sstudies. Each also attempts to provide definition toa field in the process of development, a complexinterdisciplinary area of scholarship and curriculumthat is also a strategy for educational change.Beyond definition, each monograph recommends researchessential for the future development of women'sstudies and important to educational research morebroadly.
While 'producing these eight monographs, theresearchers met for 2 days to compare perspectives andconclusions. As a group, we agreed to offer fourformal recommendations to the National Institute ofEducation and to all other Federal agencies andprivate foundations that might pursue and supportresearch and development in women's studies.
iii
The need for future monographs. We recognize
the importance of continuing the developmentof information about relatively unexploredaspects of women's studies. Among thoseaspects that need examination, the followingare especially important:
a. Graduate programs and graduate educationin women's studies.
b. Schools of education and women's studiesactivities.
c. Women's studies in the elementary andsecondary schools.
d. Noncredit curriculum development in
women's centers, continuing education for
women, and community-based centers.
2. The need for a data base on women's studies.All eight monographs recommend the develop-ment of a data base on women's studies as anecessary prelude to research design andactivity. Since women's studies has devel-oped in different ways and at differentrates on almost all campuses throughout thecountry, such a data base must be longi-tudinal in design. While we are recommendingits development in higher education, such adata base eventually will need to be extended
to all areas of education. We recommend thatannual updates be built into the data base to
ensure its proper maintenance and continued
usefulness.
The -ualifications of research personnel inwomen's studies. We believe that the dis-tinctive and complex nature of women'sstudies, as well as the fact that it is still
a developing field, makes it essential thatresearchers be thoroughly informed about
iv
women's studies and be prepared to involvewomen's studies practitioners in every aspectof research design and process. We arehopeful that NIE and other Federal agencies,private foundations, and research institu-tions will place responsibility for researchin women's studies in the hands of thoseexperienced and knowledgeable about thearea.
Considerations significant to evaluation___-
research and methodology. We believe that
the evaluation of women's studies in highereducation will be an important activity ofthe coming decade. Such evaluation willserve the researcher interested in theprocesses of changing higher education, as
well as those charged with administeringinstitutions. Such evaluation should, onprinciple, also clearly serve the develop-mental needs of women's studies programs,engaging them in the design and processes ofresearch, as well as in the determination ofthe uses to which research will be put.Evaluations should be conducted onsite, withthe cooperation of program participants, andwithin a framework of longitudinal data aboutthat program and others nationally. Re-searchers and evaluators should be sensitiveto the work of the National Women's Studies'Association in this regard, and its activi-ties serving the needs of women's studiesprograms.
Detailed, further recommendations appear in eachthe eight monographs.
We wish to express our appreciation to theNational institute of Education for pursuing this
v
research, and particularly to C.B. Crump, who directedthe women's Studies Planning Studies project.
Christine BoseKathryn Brooks
Margaret EileenchildAllana Elovson
Mareyjoyce GreenBlanche Glassman Hersh
Florence HowePaul Lauter
Elizabeth Ness NelsonNancy Porter
Janet PriestJonesElaine Reuben
Mary Jo Strauss
vi
SWART
This survey of research and data gatheringheeds in the area of women's studies graduates, likecompanion volumes in this monograph series, derives,in part, from recommendations for further study madein Seven Years Later: Women's Studies' Pro rams in1976, a Report of the National Advisory Council onWomen's Educational Programs (Howe, 1977).
This planning study is a small first step towardaddressing questions, like those posed in SevenYears_Later, as suggestions for studies of graduatesof women's studies programs:
Tracing graduates of women's studiesprograms who enter fields dominated bytraditionally trained graduates may tell ussomething about the particular competenciesoffered to women's studies majors. Forexample, does women's studies equip studentsto be better human service professionalsthan do degrees in traditional disciplinesor in public administration? Is theresomething in the style of teaching, theinteraction of learner and faculty member,and the content of women's studies programsthat leads women's studies majors to acquirecompetencies that would not be developed inmore traditional liberal arts majors?(Howe, 1977).
Othern interested in this as about the impactof wo-n's studies on the "life competencies" of itsgraduates, about how graduates use the degree andintegrate this feminist educational experience intotheir personal lives rind into ongoing politicalcommitments and involvements.
vii
Such evaluative and comparative definitions ofthis area presume and would require a complex andextensive data base and research agenda that include:
1. Comprehensive, compatible national datagathering and research to identify, profile,and track graduates of women's studiesprograms;
2. Related data gathering and analyses ofwomen's studies programs, curriculum, anddegrees to establish commonalities and
idifferences in their institutional struc-tures, curricular content, and impact onstudents;
Longitudinal studies and cohort analyses ofwomen's studies graduates to investigatetheir career and life patterns over time, andthe impact on this population of historicalchanges brought about in (and by) the women'sliberation movement, educational institu-tions, and the national economy;
4. Comparative studies, with many populations,controlled not only for academic training anddegrees, but for variables such as sex, race,age, morital and/or parental status, regional
tins. nonacademic experience, and feministLonsciousness and activity;
5. Definition and establishment of measuresfor the qualities, competencies, skills,and achievements to be studied 1 the educa-tion and initial and continuing employmentand service activities of women's studiesgraduates.
As will become evident in the body of this mono-graph, a great deal of basic work is yet to be done in
even the first two necessary sub-areas of investiga-
ti.on _before significant answers to questions about
women's studies graduates will be possible.
viii
The formulation of the problem area of thisstudy is most simply and popularly expressed in thequestion, "What do women's studies graduates do?"Asked by students, parents, educational adminis-trators, faculty advisors, and potential employers,the question may be phrased: "Why wajor in women'sstudies?" "What can a Person do with a degree orcertificate in women's studies?" "What have ethersdone?" Those who teach in or administer women'sstudies pro9:ams want to know, "What happens to ourgraduates? How many have there been? What employmentopportunities are available for them?" Nonacademicfeminists want to know how women's studies preparesstudents to contribute to the movement for socialchange, and potential employers want to know who thesestudents are.
The problem area defined in these terms wouldrequire review and assessment of research literatureand datn on graduates of women's studies programs forinformation about their uses of the women's studiesmajor, certificate, minor, or degree in postgraduatework or further study. Initial tracking of graduatesof women's studies programs would indicate ate currentacceptability of certification in women's studies tograduate and professional schools and in the workforce, and would suggest additional uses of thedegree. Resulting reports, analogous to those avail-able for and about graduates of established andtraditional fields of study, would make women'sstudies and its graduates more visible -- and thus,more credible -- within and outside academic settings.
The significance of this primary statement of theproblem area for the entire field of women's studiesshou'd not be underestimated. Even when local studiesexist, as they do in some programs, they lack acontext and the impact that comprehensive nationaldata could provide. The "marketability" of an educa-tion becomes an increasingly critical factor instudent selection of programn and in institutionalsupport for them. Women's studies programs, and those
ix
who wish to establiA programs, need adequate documen-tation to answer the questions posed by their variousconstitugmcies.
At an early stage in program development, suchanswers are part of the rationale presented withrequests for authority and support to offer some formrf certification; at a later stage, part of thejustification for maintaining and enlarging programcapacities. Women's studies degrees are "new,"nontraditional, and interdisciplinary, and theyinvolve a predominantly female population of teachersand learners. Given, as well, the feminist valueorientation of women's studies programs, they, andtheir graduates, are likely to encounter misapprehen-sions about the real and perceivu eemtent and useful-ness of this field of study that identification andtracking of graduates could help clarify and dispel.
The various definitions of the problem area,"women'a studies graduates," are not mutually exclu-sive. Attention to their different orders of magni-tude and complexity need not suggest that the morecomplex research should somehow be postponed until thesimpler has been completed. On the contrary. Broaddefinitions of concerns for and about feminist educa-tion in postsecondary settings, and of the terms inwhich such education should be studied and evaluated,are necessary to ensure that meaningful work in thisarea will reflect core values of women's studies andserve women's studies programs, their students,faculties, and communities.
To the extent that evaluative and comparativeconcerns provide a framework for descriptive andinformational data gathering and research planning,programs will enhance their ability to clarify thenature of women's studies for potential students andothers whose interest and support they seek. Evenpreliminary discussion of the "particular competenciesoffered to women's studies majors" will help programsto counsel students, to set priorities for curr,ulum
and related planning, and to set agendas for cooperative activities with other &cademic and nonacademicprograms, groups, and agencie:-,. Research in this areashould be valuable to a broad range of educationalplanners and theorists as well.
However, it must be noted and reemphasized thatessential national information on women's studiesgraduates numbers, nomenclature, initial terms ofanalysis -- has yet to be adequately gathered andshared. We hope that this planning study can serve at
least to encourage and provide support for suchwork.
This plLiining study is concerned primarily with
the distinctive population of "women's studiesgraduates," defined here as those students who have
completed requirements for a postsecondary degree,
certificate, or other form of academic certificationin women's studies.
Women's studies graduates include:
1. Alumnae of women's studies programs authorized to offer legrees;
Students whose degrees included women'sstudies as an identified minor, certificate,or area of concentration;
3. Students who graduated with individuallydesigned, special, or seneral studies majorsin women's studies.
Traduate" is used, as appropriate, to refer to allthese subcategories, and "degree" to refer generallyto these various academic credentials.
This population of students has taken some numberof women's studies courses offered by women's studiesprograms and traditional departments. It has alsochosen to make its involvement with women's studies
xi
learning and research a formal otle, through affilia-tion with campus women's studies programs and/or otherinstitutional mechanisms and structures. As themonographs in this series make plain, graduates arenot the only students involved in women's studies orwith women's studies programs, but they are a growingpopulation and one significant to the strength anddevelopment of the field.
Emphasis in this study on undergraduate degreerecipients in women's studies is, in large part, a
function of the literature and data available; itreflects the past decade's history of undergraduatewomen's studies curriculum and program development.We are not able to distinguish significantly hereamong the settings in which undergraduates haveobtained degrees in women's studies, but we remindreaders who may be unfamiliar with the field thatthere is 'diversity among women's studies programssimilar, but not always identical, to the diversity ofthe institutions in which they are established.
As noted in the preface to this series, graduate(i.e., post-B.A.) programs and graduate education inwomen's studies need and are deserving of a:full-scaleand separate planning study. There are indicationsthat such programs and such graduates will multiply inthis decade, and it is not too soon to explore thedata gathering and research issues and problemsparticular to them. We examine available informationon M.A. graduates in women's studies, and take note ofrelated Ph.D. populations, but do so with the recogni-tion that these populations are not directly compar-able to B.A. graduates and degree programs.
Elaine ReubenMary Jo Boehm Strauss
National Women's Studies Association
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This planning study would not have been possiblewithout the data and experiences so generously shardby more than 60 women's studies programs. To them our
thanks.
Agnes Q. Wells, National Center for EducationStatistics, ..and Judith Pinch, Woodrow Wilson NationalFellowship Foundation, went beyond the scope of theirusual duties to share information not otherwiseavailable. Esther Stineman, then University ofWisconsin women's studies librarian-at-large, allowedus to review her unpublished research on the abilityof women's, studies graduates to find employment.Susan Cardinale, reference librarian at the Universityof Maryland, College Park, and a women's studiesgraduate, gave expert advice and assistance on the useof research facilities at that institution.
Staff persons at the American Council on Educa-tion; American Association of University Women;Business and Professional Women's Foundation; CollegePlacement Council, Incorporated; Educational Testing
Service; Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary_
Education; Higher Education- Institute;ResearchHERS/Mid-Atlantic; National Center for EducationStatistics; National Endowment for the Humanities;National Institute of Education; National ScienceFoundation; Office of Education; Scientific ManpowerCommission; and Women's Educational Equity Act Programalso offered valuable advice, information, and
encouragement.
A very special acknowledgment is due to TimmieShanahan, a women's studies graduate, writer, andresearcher, who initiated the search for informationon which this study is based.
CONTENTS
Page
PREFACE iii
SUMMARY 0,0000 000000000 .. *000000 00 00, V1]
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . ... .. xiii
1. LITERATURE REVIEW AND DATA INVENTORY
Research Literature on Women's StudiesGraduates..." . ...................... 1
Data on Women's Studies Graduates.......... 2
Identification of Women's StudiesPrograms and Degrees.............. 9
Information on Women's StudiesGraduates: A Pilot Survey of Women's
Studies Programs.....qa..."..a. 14
2. WHAT ARE GRADUATES DOING WITH A DEGREEIN WOMEN'S STUDIES? ....... ........... 23
B.A. Graduates in Women's Studies.......... 23
Graduates with Certificates or Minors in
Women's .. 27
Beyond Tables 1 and 2: Further Questions
and Suggested Answers........... . ....... 31
M.A. Graduates and Graduate Minors inWomen's Studies......................... 36
On the Ph.D. in Women's Studies and Ph.D.'s
in Women's Studies 45
Related Populations and Data Sources 52
CAREER AND EMPLOYMENT ISSUES IN WOMEN'S
STUDIES 59
Women's Studies Programs and CareerDevelopment OM* . . *...dre&O*00.*.0*.40.. 59
Employment Opportunities for Women'sStudies Graduates.................. . 63
acv
CONTENTS(Continued:
Page
The Knowledge, Skills, and AttitudesStudents Acquire from Women's Studies:Published Research 69
The Knowledge, Skills, and AttitudesStudents Acquire from Women's Studies:Graduates', Perceptions and Responses 78
Coda: What Future for Women's StudiesGraduates? 93
RECOMMENDATIONS ....... ... . ............ 99
Encourage Research Literature on Women'sStudies Graduates ........ ....... ......... 99
Gather Data on Women's Studies Graduates,Degrees, and Programa 101
Profile and Track Women's StudiesGraduates..... ... *0 ... m ... . 0 ...... Were 104
Develop/Distribute Information on Careerand Employment Issues in Women'sStudies 107
APPENDIX A DATA PROVIDED BY THE NATIONALCENTER FOR EDUCATION STATISTICS ON EARNEDDEGREES CONFERRED IN WOMEN'S STUDIES,1975 TO 1977 109
APPENDIX B INSTITUTIONS THAT OFFER MINORS,CERTIFICATES, AND DEGREES IN WOMEN'SSTUDIES 113
APPENDIX C AN EXAMINATION OF THE RELIABILITYOF FOLLOWUP INFORMATION ON WOMEN'S STUDIESGRADUATES ............... .. .. . . . . 121
APPENDIX D SELECTION OF PRACTICUMS COMPLETEDBY GRADUATES OF THE GEORGE WASHINGTONUNIVERSITY, WOMEN'S STUDIES M.A. DEGREEPROGRAM 123
xvi
CONTENTS(Continued)
APPENDIX E ESTHER STINEMAN REQUEST FORINFORMATION ON EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN'SSTUDIES GRADUATES ....... 00 www .w . 129
APPENDIX F - OCCUPATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES (INWOMEN'S STUDIES). . ......... 133
REFERENCES 139
BIBLIOGRAPHY 159
xvii
LITERATURE D DATA INVENTORY
Research Literature on Women's Studies Graduates
Only two articles on graduates of women's studiesprograms, both in the Women's Studies Newsletter,had appeared at the time this study was undertaken.They provide information about 24 graduates of twodifferent programs: one analyzed the postgraduatework activities and experiences of early graduates ofthe Portland State University certificate program(Hoffman, 1973); the other reported on a survey ofgraduates of the University of Washington B.A. program(Bose et al., 1977).
A systematic search for additional researchliterature on or about women's studies graduatesconfirmed our expectation that little such informationwould exist yet in standard sources. No other ub-
lished identification trackin= or follow -up studies
of women's studies graduates were 4Ascovered.1 A
further search, for recent research' reports as yetunpublished or unindexed, also provided no literaturedirectly relevant to this area.2
A. traditional literature search report is _
leading, however. What is published is not equivalent
to what is. Women's studies degrees, as such, havebeen authorized only since 1970; most are subsequentto that date. The population of women's studiesgraduates is still new and small. Those most likelyto pursue and publish research on this population havebeen, until now, those most likely to.be occupiedwith the ongoing work of women's studies teaching,research, and program governance.
"Literature" on graduates of women's studiesprograms comes from the prOgrams themselves in
the form of unpublished, uncirculated, or privatelycirculated reports and studies. Those available tous, and the two articles cited above, are reviewed in
the body of this study.
Data on Women's Studies Graduates
Identification of Women's Studies GraduaNational Center for Education Statistics
The data source.for numbers of students enrolledin and receiving degrees in various disciplines is theNational Center for Education Statistics (NCES),Division of Postsecondary and Vocational EducationStatistics.
Near the end of each academic year, NCES sendsforms for its Higher Education General InformationSurvey (REGIS) to the Office of the President of alldegreegranting institutions. Generally completed byregistrars and/or deans, these survey forms arereturned by early fall to NCES for processing, datacompilation, analysis, and reporting. The rate ofreturn on the -approximately 2,000 questionnairesdistributed is virtually 100 percent. Publication ofresults lags collection of data by at least 2 years;thus, the 1975-76 academic year degree informationappeared in 1978.
NCES data are the basic educational data ongraduates for contemporary, historical, technical, andlegal reasons and purposes. They are publishedannually in Earned De _ees Conferred: Su--ar- Data(NCES 78300, for example In 1978, NCES alsopublished four surveys --, on doctoral, master's,bachelor's and firstprofessional.degrees awarded towomen from 1971 tu 1976 based on HEGIS data forthose years (NCES 78-336A, B, C, and D).
These. NCES publications should and would be ableto inventory and report the numbers of persons who hadreceived a B.A. or M.A. in women's studies (and theinstitutions granting those degrees) if these wereautonomous degrees, equivalent to those granted by and
in traditional fields of study. However, because mostwomen's studies graduates have not received suchdegrees And because NCES does not tabulate or report
2
undergraduate or graduate certificates or minors, NCESpublications are only minimally useful as direct datasources on the population of this monograph.
Furthermore, "Women's Studies" is not currentlyan indepedent classification on the REGIS survey.Institutional respondents who wish to report women'sstudies graduates do so by writing in informationunder the XX99 ("Other, specify") category for theappropriate general classification. The NCES Divisionof Postsecondary. and Vocational Education Statisticsprovided us with all the information on women'sstudies graduates available from its files, data notin published reports.
"Women's Studies" has been reported to NCES todate as a subcategory of the following degree classifications: Area Studies; Letters; Social Sciences;
Social Studies; Interdisciplinary Studies; and
Public ServiceRelated Technologies. For the 1975-76acaC.emic year, 1 associate of arts, 17 bachelor's, and29 mast 's degrees in women's studies were reportedto NCES through REGIS XI. In 1976-77 (the most recent
year for which data were available), 1 associate ofarts, 28 bachelor'-s, and 12 master's degrees werereported through REGIS XII. These data are summarized
in appendix A.
For women's studies, NCES information, evenon detrees conferred, is incomplete and thereforeunreliable as a basis for significant generalizations. Institutions known to us to have conferreddegrees in women's studies during. these 2 yearsare not included on the list in appendix A; presumably, they and others have reported women's studiesgraduates under an appropriate general classification,but without particular subspecification.
We should note that NCES..records did identify38 B.A. degrees not reported in the information onwomen's studies graduates from women's studiesprograms available for development of this monograph.
Although this fact might suggest the existence ofwomen's studies programs not yet identified by the
National Women's Studies Association/The FeministPress and listed in the Women's Studies Newsletter,our investigation confirmed that this was not thecase. All institutions with women's studies programsare not yet reporting all their graduates to NCEE, butinstitutions without women's studies programs dogrant, and are in some instances reporting, degreesin women's studies. In future research on women'sstudies graduates, systematic reporting throughNCES mechanisms would be particularly valuable for
identification_ef graduates of those schools that donot have women's studies programs as yet.
Issues in Identification, TrackingOf Graduates: Other Data Sources
Other major national sources of data and information on postsecondary graduates did not yield data orinformation directly pertinent to this monograph onwomen's studies graduaten. Exploration of the ongoingactivities of the NaLional Science Foundation's (NSF)Division of-Science Resource Studies and the CollegePlacement. Council (CPC) did, however, provide acontext and raise issues for future and longrange
iresearch planning n this area.
National Science Foundation. The NationalScience Foundation, Division of Science ResourceStudies, counts and surveys postsecondary graduates.Because NSF is coneerned with scientists and engineers, its data, as such, have little direct relevanceto this monograph, However, the sophisticated tracking and followup system the agency oversees is a modelfor indentifying graduates and tracking their careerpatterns in any field or discipline.
Since 1972, NSF has tracked a representative,selected sample of experienced scientists and engineers by means of a questionnaire mailed biennially.About 90 percent are returned, and the data are
4
extrapolated to the entire population of scientistsand engineers as determined from 1970 Census informa-
tion on fields of employment and education.
NSF classifies a person as being "in a field"
when the individual meets at least two of the follow-
ing criteria: employment in the field; attainment of
a specified level in an academic discipline relatedto the field; self-identification, based on totaleducation and experience, as being in the field
(NSF 76-330, p. 9).
It may be difficult to translate these criteria
exactly and directly to tha field of women's studies,
but they offer valuable analytic consideration forfurther research on women's studies graduates and for
planning and development in women's studies generally.
As part of its overall tracking and work-force
projection procedure, NSF also sends questionnaires
directly to recent B.A. and M.A. recipients from aselected sampling of institutions; names and addresses
are obtained from registrars' and alumni offices.Recent doctoral recipients in the sciences and engi-
neering_are identified through the National Research
Council's ongoing survey of doctorates in all dis-
ciplines.
The results of these extensive surveys arepublished in a three-part series Characteristics of
the National Sample of Scientists and Engineers, 1974,
Part I., Demographic and Educational; Part 2., Employ-
ment; Part 3., Geographic (NSF 75-333; 76-323;
76-330). These data permit NSF to project demand for
and long-range supply of dcientlsts and engineers
rained in each discipline. Federal funding isavailable for these surveys because the information
they provide is considered vital to the national
defense. When information on trained feminists is
considered vital to the Nation's well-being, graduates
of women's studies programs will no longer be hidden
in national educational statistics compendia.
5
Tha College Placement Council. The CollegePlacement Council, Incorporated, a nonprofit nationalorganization, describes itself as the interfacebetween higher education and the employers of collegegraduates. Its primary constituencies are careerplanning and placement directors at 2- and 4-yearcolleges and universities, and representatives ofemployers in business, industry, and government.
CPC is bet known for its College PlacementAnnual, a directory of occupational opportunities forcollege graduates, and for CPC Salary Survey, a reporton average beginning salaries offered to graduatingstudents that is published three times a year. Ingeneral, CPC is looked to for assessments of theemployment picture for college graduates in variousfields in a given year and as a source of informationabout college-trained personnel. Its publications andthe materials in its Research Information Center inBethlehem, Pennsylvania, could be of interest to thoseconcerned with career planning and employment ivsuesfor women's studies students and graduates.
To assist employers in their equal opportunityprograms, CPC has recently begun .vt distribute dataon the number of women and minoritLs in colleges anduniversities. Since these data are extracted fromNCES data, they will not refer directly to women'sstudies students and graduates; theoretically,- atleast, ,CPC could inform employers about women'sstudies graduates as a population yet to be tabulated.
The College Placement Council has a separateresearch entity, the CPC Foundation, that receivesfinancial support from other foundations, business,and industry. Between 1972 and 1975, the foundationreleased a series of six monographs on career choicesand occupational outcomes of college graduates,examining many of the questions that trght be askedabout women's studies graduates: relation of educe-tionml background and occupation; career choices andself-concept; employment status and means of obtainingoccupational employment, and the like.
6
The data base for these reports is ttie carefullyweighted data on the 1961 and 1966 freshman classes in4-year institutions gathered by the American Councilon Education as part of an extensive longitudinalresearch program instituted and directed by AlexanderW. Astin. These data do not specifically includewomen's studies graduates, but both the original datagathering_ and subsequent research designs were sensi-
tive to sex as a variable; studies of these twocohorts suggest useful models and provide comparativedata for longitudinal and cohort analyses of women'sstudies graduates. Two of these reports are ofparticular interest.
Career Plans o_f Calle e Graduates of 1965 and1970 (Helen S. Astin and Bisconti; 1973) revealed very
limited career choices by women college graduates,even in 1970: nearly half of that year's femalegraduates, like those of 1965, planned to teach at theelementary and secondary level. The authors note thatthe freshman and senior year plans of these twocohorts, female and male, are not very different,despite the turmoil of the late 1960's on campus.Researchers interestad in women's studies graduates,who might suggest that "feminist turmoil" did notbecome widespread on campus until just After the late1960's, can only regret the absence of later data forsubsequent analyses.
The 1971 followup of 1961 freshmen, TheHard-to-Place Ma'orit:7-A National Stud of. the Career Out-
comes of Liberal Arts Graduates (Bisconti and Gomberg,
1975),' another monograph in this CPC series, echoesthe NSF criteria for being "in a field" cited justabove. It points out that most assessments of therelationship between field of study and subsequentemployment have been limited to examination of the
occupational titles of persons who majored in dif-ferent fields, without taking into account eitherthe nature of their actual work activities or theperspective on those activities of the employed grad-
uates. This study asked the graduates Specifically
7
to indicate if they were working in the field forwhich they were trained, a desirable procedure foradaptation by those researching career patterns ofwomen's studies graduates.
A more recent CPC Foundation publication, Women:.Marria-e: Career and Job Satisfaction (Bisconti,19711_, reports data collected in 1974-75 by the HigherEducation Research Institute from respondents in thedata base surveyed initially in 1961, as freshmen, andfollowed up in 1965 and 1971. Like the survey data on"Person i.:',13t Influential in Career Choice" included inCollege Graduates and Their Em_loers (Bisconti,1975 , this study recognizes the important influenceof friends, parents, spouse, children, and other"nonclassroom",relationships on graduates' careerchoices and occupational activities, and it provides amodel for comparative examination of the impact ofthese variables on women's studies graduates.
Additional Data Sources. In recent years, as adirect result of ---ifmmtive action legislation andconcerns, the Scientific Manpower Commission has beenparticularly concerned with reporting not only thenumbers of women and minorities in, but also thoseavailable to, the natural and social sciences,engineering, arts, humanities, health fields, education, and all the professions. Its publication,Professional Wome n and Minorities: A Manpower DataResource Service, draws upon Federal data and datacollected by professional societies, women's caucuses,and academic institutions to delineate: enrollments;degrees; and general, academic, and Federal work forceparticipation. The publication is updated with annualsupplements; monthly digests report developmentsaffecting education, recruitment, and utilization ofscientific, engineering, and technical personnel.These data have some potential for serving as longitudinal comparison data for graduates of women'sstudies programs.
Since women's studies has only recently begun tobe recognized as a.field for study, research, and
8
employment, neither Bureau of Labor Statistics datanor Ceasus Bureau data currently provide information
on employment of women's studies graduates. VariTyus
and additional data sources, including those estab-
lished and maintained by educational institutions,
researchers, and associations, might have been
investigated for this study, but it seemed evidentthat the data source for information on numbers and
postgraduate activities of women's studies graduateswould be women's studies programs.
Identification o Studies Fro =rams and D rees
The primary reference for identification ofwomen's studies programs and for information ondegrees they offer is the listing of programs pub-lished in Women's Studies Newsletter. This.compila-
tion was begun. in 1973 by The Clearinghouse on Women's
Studies of The Feminist Press. The National Women's
Studies Association (co-publisher of Women's Studies
Newsletter since the organisation's founding in 1977)
and The Feminist Press jointly compiled the 1978
listing, published in the fall 1978 Newletter; that
listing included 301 programs that had identifiedthemselves to the Press or the Association.
Wom.en'c Studies Newsletter Data
The growth of women's studies and the developmentof women's studies programs from 1970 to 1976-77 are
outlined in the Introduction and Overview chapters of
Seven Years Later. From two programs -- one at SanDiego State University and one at Cornell University
in 1970, the number of identified programs has
grown: 15 in 1971; 75 in 1973; 112 in 1974; 152 in1975; 276 in 1977, and 301 as of 1978. Over half of
these report some form of certification in women'sstudies: at least 82 list B.A,'s, 25 M.A.'s, and
5 Ph.D.'s; 95 report certificates, minors, or areas of
concentration in women's studies; and over 40 programs
report offering more than one of these credentials
(Howe, summer 1977, fall 1978).
The continuing growth of women's studies andwomen's studies programs, with new courses, programs,and degrees regularly being established and approved,makes any women's studies program listing incomplete,almost by definition, at the moment of its publica-tion. "Women's Studies Programs" (1978) does repre-sent, however, a comprehensive national roster, the
ntial accuracy of which we were able to confirm inthe course of this study.
Entries in this listing contain the programaddress and name of the program coordinator, director,chair, or governance committee, and summary data ondegree offerings; programs are labelled as offering aminor, certificate, A.A., B.A., M.A., or Ph.D., with abrief description of particular features of thecredential where available. Programs listed without adegree notation are presumed to offer or coordinate aroster oi elective courses.
As part of the mail survey to update earlierlistings for the 1978 publication, programs previouslylisted as offering post-B.A. degrees were specificallyand additionally asked to provide more detailedinformation for prospective students and theiradvisors; a description of the curricular shape andemphasis of the graduate program; expectations for andrequirements of students; financial information;and numbers and activities of graduates. To date,eight self-descriptive reports have been published("Graduate Programs in Women's Studies," 1978; 1979).Others are expected to appear in 1980. These reportsdemonstrate the difficulty of generalizing aboutgraduate women's studies programs and degrees.Degrees reported vary greatly in curricular andstructural design, from nearly total concentrationin women's studies_ (e.g., women's history), toindividualized options for interdisciplinary programsof study, to liberal arts women's studies concentra-tions within a vocationally oriented degree program,or the reverse.
10
Undergraduate programs are more like one another,but they also vary in structure, g'redit require-
ments, and emphasis in their degree'offerings.Self-descriptive use of terms (major, joint or dual
major, independent or cognate major, minor,. second
field, certificate, area of concentration, and the
like) may br somewhat dependent on local institutional
usage; one state system's "certificate" may be theequivalent of another's "major," and some programs mayhave chosen to develop by way of a concentration in
women's studies within an established degree becauseapproval of a new certificate or degree was institu-
tionally difficult. Comparable national women'sstudies nomenclature is not yet fully established.3
Women's studies programs are not, in general, the
structural equivalent of traditional discipline
departments. It is not surprising that many of the
B.A. degrees listed are interdisciplinary studies,
self-designed, cr special studies degrees, struc-turally like the individual "committee degrees" that
many institutions allow to enterprising students who
can obtain faculty 'support for a nondepartmentaldegree, those degrees that some "nontraditional"colleges offer to all students enrolled. Not all
women's studies programs whose institutions allow
for such degrees may have chosen to identify this
option as directly related to their program offer-
ings, and not all institutions designed to provide
individualized study identify women's studies as a
potential focus. Some women's studies programs do
offer an autonomous degree in women's studies, and
more are likely to do so in the next decade.
Other Data Sources
Additional data sources for idenfication ofwomen's studies programS and degrees would include:
presently unpublished information in the files of NWSA
and The Feminist Press, gathered in preparation for
publication of the 1980 program listing; surveys and
directories of women's studies and other feminist
11
educational resources compiled by state-based, local,or regional groups in and for their area (ColoradoWomen's Studies Association, Northwest Women StudiesResource Bank, Illinois IWY Committee, University ofWisconsin Extension Division, The Office of AcademicPrograms of the State University of New York, GreatLakes College- Association, and the like); research onthe status And education of women like that done bythe American Association of University Women (Howard,1978); and standard reference sources in highereducation.
The New York directory, Women's Studies_ in thehate University of New York ,(Chancellor's Advisoryommittee on Women's Studies, 1978), for example,reports at least one degree-granting program and one,rogram offering courses that had not been included in'Women's Studies Programs" (1978); data reported fromhe AAUW study suggest a possibility of others. As:he National Women's Studies Association begins toleet annually (its first national conference wasfield in May 1979), and as its regional associa-:ions continue to develop, one can presume that therisibility -- and thus the accuracy -- of its listingtf women's studies programs and their degree offeringsrill be maintained and strengthened.
Visibility within the field, however, is notiecessarily equivalent to visibility in and outsideducational settings. As a cross-reference to the
xogram data inventory outlined here, we moved fromeminist educational resources to examine severalopular references that provide information aboutagree programs on U.S. campuses. We did not includen this mini-survey the Index of Majors,_
_ .
College Board Publication).
The College Bluebook: Degrees Offered by Collegend Subject -(1977) listed women's studies in itsrogram index; 9 institutions appear under thatesignation, all included in the Newsletter listingf 301. The 1977 edition of CoMPeretiveCuideto
12
American Colleges_ (Cass and Birnbaum, 1977) did notinclude Women's Studies under "Programs of Study,"although it did include Islamic Studies and named oneuniversity with that program. Barron's Profiles ofAmerican CptlaiLl (1973) has a gcnaral description,Area Studis, that includes .six programs, fromAmerican to Urban -- but not Women's; in Barron'sprofiles of individual institutions, Women's Studiesis rarely seen under "Programs of Study" or "SpecialPrograms."
Reporting institutions, presumably, rather thanthe various publishers of these guides, must beaccountable for the omission of women's studiesprograms and degrees from materials commonly used bypersons "shopping" for colleges for themselves and/ortheir children. One would not expect these referencesto reveal otharwise unidentified programs, but wouldhope that they might rapidly begin to reflect therealities of women's studies' presence in highereducation, perhaps, at least, by reprinting orreferring to the NWSA Women's Studies Newsletterlisting of women's studiee programs.
Need for Additional Data
It will be more difficult, but as important,to collect and disseminate information and dataabout women's studies degrees and related feminist
educational opportunities possible and available oncampuses without formal women's studies programs.Advisors informed about developments in the fieldmight be able to point out to students consideringselection of a college or university that the presenceof a university center for research on women or acommunity college women's center or program suggeststhe presence of sufficient faculty and institutionalinterest to support their development of a program ofstudy equivalent to a women's studies degree. Some
institutions participate in educational consortiathat are themselves the focus of women's studiesactivity. Similar sorts of "best.guesses" can be
13
made, informally, on the basis of various otherindicators, but there is at present no formal mecha-nism for collating and synthesizing such networkinsights and research findings in women's studies.4
Similarly, women's studies graduates whosedegrees have not been recorded as such by women'sstudies programs or other institutional mechanismswill be extremely difficult to identify and thus toprofile and track, as will those students whoseeducational experience has been essentially identicalto that of women's studies graduates except for theformal identification of their degree as "women'sstudies." As the field becomes better established, itmay be possible to issue a call for such persons toidentify themselves to a central alumnae registry,perhaps established by NWSA and its Student Caucus.
Information on Women's Studies Graduates:A Pilot Survey of _Women's Studies Programs
Our literature search had found reports of twonational surveys of college and university Americanstudies programs and a third specifically cn Americanstudies graduates and their careers (Walker, 1958;
Bassett, 1975; Whitlow, 1977). The first two compre-hensive studies eeal with program structure, cur-riculum, faculty, students, and graduates, and couldserve as comparative models for future institutionalresearch on women's studies programs. Whitlow'sstudy sought answers to the question, "But what cansomeone with an American studies degree do?" It asked
institutions reporting American_ studies programs or
courses to report the total number of American studiesgraduates by degree and a percentage listing ofvarious jobs taken by degree. (Those results for
B.A. graduates are noted in reference 11.)
Our request for information, literature, andresponses from women's studies programs about theirgraduates took a similarly sii.ple form. 4e recognizedthat there would be women's studies graduates who
14
could not be.identified or tracked by women's studiesprograms, but that data and information from programswould comprise the key material currently available.
Memorandums to approximately 300 programs,including those listed in "Women's Studies Programs"and several identified through other resources,requested available materials on the numbers andactivities of graduates who had majored, minored, orreceived certificates in women's studies. We felt itimportant to query all programs, even those that asyet presumably had no graduates or were not yet listedas authorized to offer degrees, in order at least tocall this problem area to their attention.
Written Program Responses
We received telephoned or written responsesfrom 66 of the approximately 300 programs contactedinitially; 58 respondents were among the 155 programsoffering credentials in women's studies, thus repTe-senting a 37 percent response rate from those programsof primary concern to this study. It appears thatmany did not respond because they did not have reportsor information available on graduates; others becauseof a lack of staff and financial support for dealingwith this and related research requests. Appendix B
lists programs offering each type of credentialavailable in women's studies in 1978 and indicatesthose programs that form the sample for this study.
Exactly half (33 programs) provided numerical
data on persons who had received certificates, minors,and B.A. or M.A. degrees in women's studies. These
data supplied information about 44 different certifi-cates, minors, or degrees, with 11 programs reportingdata on more than one credential. We received somequantitative information from 16 percent (15) of the95 certificate or minor programs; from 23 percent (19)of the 82 B.A. programs; and from 40 percent (10) ofthe 25 M.A. and graduate minor programs.
.15
For this study, we chose to group undergraduateminors and certificates in one category becausecurricular requirements for these credentials werebelieved to be so frequently similar, and in mostcases met in addition to the requirements of a traditional departmental- major. The low response rate inthis category may follow from the fact that theidentity of minors is obscure on many campuses, oftenknown only to the student. Furthermore, women'sstudies certificate programs tend to be more recentlyestablished than university degrees allowing forconcentrations in women's studies, and thus have fewergraduates at this time. Extra effort made to elicitresponses from graduate programs, combined with NWSA'se_xlier efforts to acquire and publish information onthese progroras, helps to account for the higherresponse rate in this category.
Women's studies programa that sent numericalinformation also enclosed more samples of othermaterials: brochures, flyers, news clippings, courselists, program proposals, and newsletters. Only fiveprograms provided indepth followup on the activitiesof their graduates, i.e., surveys of graduates thatasked for impressions of their education in women'sstudies, for their vocational and avocational activities since graduation, and for demographic information. Oregon State and the University of Pittsburghsent reports on certificate graduates; the University of Washington and the University of Californiaat Santa Cruz on B.A. graduates; and the GeorgeWashington University om M.A. graduates (Lawson, J.,1978; Frieze, 1978; Bose et al., 1976; Lawson, T.,
1979; Streicher, 1977). All of these reports werebased on mailed questionnaires, and furnished quotations from students' narrative responses as well asstatistical information.
Sarah Lawrence College sent a comprehensivereview of its M.A. program in women's history thatontained information on the career activities ofL9 graduates (Lerner and Swerdlow, 1976). Several
3 16
programs sent tables and correspondence describinggraduates and their activities, but no impressionisticdata from former students themselves. One programcoordinator sent letters written to her by formerstudents with their comments on experiences sincegraduation.
The 33 programs that did not furnish numericaldata on graduates gave various types of responses.Two sent brochures and no correspondence; five pro-vided enrollment data on "degrees in progress" but noinformation on graduates. Six programs indicated thatthey were too "new" to have graduates, and severalwrote that counting minors on their campuses is
difficult. Five informed us that followup surveyswere underway but that data would not be available intime for this study. A frequent response was that nosurvey had ever been made, but that our memorandum hadseen taken to a dean who was now allocating funds fora 7raduate student to undertake one.
Eight programs that do not grant degrees providedinformation. One, a community college, also indi-cated that it was surveying the activities of formerstudents. Other programs wrote that they werecurrently seeking approval to offer a degree orcertificate. One institution queried, identified byNCES as having awarded an interdisciplinary degree inwomen's studies in 1977, replied that it does notconfer degrees in women's studies!
Telephone Responses
Telephone contacts with program coordinators,directors, and/or chairs of program committees pro-vided a kind of data from and about women's studiesprograms unlikely to have been retrieved except bysite visits. One program coordinator telephoned tosay that she did not have time or staff to prepare awritten report, but, Since this study was veryimportant, she had called together the women's studiesfaculty on her campus to gather and share their
17
information. Her oral report gave both anecdotal andstatistical information on students and graduatescompiled during that committee meeting.
Occasionally, there was simply_ an apology for adelayed response and a promise of data to follow assoon as possible. More typical of many responseswas:
I have a minimal staff and little money, andI am only part-time in women's studies. I
can send you a brochure and list of courses,but no hard data on activities of graduates.
iMy impression is that about a dozen havereceived degrees here. Half of them are inlaw school or doing affirmative action typeof work. The others are in communityservice or welfare work as CETA employees.Their jobs aren't necessarily permanent, butthey are out there writing proposals andgetting some 0,nd experience. They are"survivors."
Another, more extreme, but not atypical, re-sponse:
I don't really know about students in theprogram. We have a $150 budget: $50 for
NWSA dues and $100 for brochures. I do notget release time from my regular facultyposition, and am r,ssentially a volunteerprogram coordinator. It's a labor of love.A lot of students enroll in our courses, butI have no way of knowing how many enroll inthe individualized program with a concentra-tion in women's studies. I am terriblyoverworked and cannot really send you anyinformation.
Another response may illustrate the importance inthis study for defining and developing research i itsts
problem area, this one from a program that many would
18
regard as among the stronger in the field, relativelywell-funded, with faculty lines, a full-time adminis-trator, and a center for research on women. Thatadministrator first replied:
I am returning your call about our program,but we really don't have any graduates inwomen's studies. There are students inindividualized programs who graduate with aspecialization in women's studies, but theydon't have a "degree in women's' studies." I
can send you numbers of students who enrolleach year in our courses, but that would beall.
As the conversation proceeded, she was surprised torealize that only a few institutions as yet offer anautonomous degree in women's studies and that, whilethe distinction she made between recipients of suchdegrees and of individualized specialization$ wasreasonable and appropriate, many would considerthe latter to be "women's studies graduates."Although she had never inquired about names or numbersof stuCents who might cciilsider themselves or beconsidered "graduates" on her campus (and doubtedif records,wer kept on area of concentration inindividualized programs), she said that in the futureshe wou1' request such records and thanked us for
=iie issue to her attention.
Preliminary Conclusions
A somewhat disturbing preliminary conclusion fromthis- pilot survey is that, on a number of campuses,the women's studies coordinator does not "officially"advise students who register in individualized ordepartmental programs with a concentration in women'sstudies. Although women's studies programs may haveresponsibility for scheduling, publicizing, andgenerally coordinating all the courses in women'sstudies that students will take under that rubric,
19
women's studies faculty and administrators may havelittle knowledge of or authority for these studentsand thcir programs of study.
On some campuses, there are several specialprograms under which a student could major or con-centrate in women's studies; they may be under the
aegis of different departments or in differentdivisions of the institution. The administr4Liveassistant/advisor of one program wrote:
As of Fall, 108, 18 students have graduatedwith majors in women's studies. This numberdoes not include students who have graduatedwith women's studies concentrations in otherprograms which, offer individually designedmajors through University Without Walls,Individually Designed InterdepartmentalMajors, Bachelor of Individualized Study andthe Inter-College Program in UniversityCollege. I have served as an advisor formany of these students, but I don't have anystatistical information available aboutthem. I mention them here because they area significant group and should be includedin your study, if not in any statisticalanalysis at least in some narrative form.If we included these students in our tallyof graduates, I am sure it would at leastdouble the total number of women's studiesgraduates. The number, however, can't beverified because we don't have easy accessto that information; it would take aconcentrated research effort identifydentify
these students, and we don't have the
resources to do it.
Many colleges and universities do not keeprecords of a student's ninor field of-study on acampus-wide basis and/or do not transmit or analyze
departmental records beyond the department. Accord-
ingly, only the student (and perhaps her/his advisor)
20
is really aware of the student's minor field.Students who develop a departmental minor or area ofconcentration in women's studies may not have institu-tional mechanisms available to facilitate theirfinding one another, and thus to experience theirstudy as part of a shared community, except as theirown initiative draws them to others, to an existingwomen's studies program, a campus women's center, orfeminist group.
Certificate programs in women's studies or minorsadministered in the women's studies program aregenerally like autonomous degrees in being theresponsibility of a program coordinator/director,and they may be more visible on campus than theindividualized B.A. options leading to a degree inwomen's studies. It would appear that these programs
are more likely to identify and bring togetherstudents enrolled. In the future, researchers onwomen's studies graduates would do well to considersuch differences and might seek to chart the interac-tions of women's studies degree calundates with oneanother and with other key groups of peers, faculty,and administrators.
21
2. WHAT ARE GRADUATES DOINGWITH A DEGREE IN WOMEN'S STUDIES?
Numerical data received from women's studiesprograms on numbers of graduates and their activitiessince graduation are summarized in tables 1, 2, and 3.
Since the tracking of graduates reported us
was that already or informally done by various pro-grams and not a response to a standard researchinstrument, it was not consistent or fully comparablein use of terms, dates, or completeness of reporting.The data on which these tables are based are partialand preliminary; they indicate patterns and suggesttrends deserving further and additional research.
S.A. Graduates in Women's Studies
Table 1 contains information available for thisstudy on the recipients of the bccalaureate degree inwomen's studiaq. The years listed in the "DegreeEstablished" column were generally provided in
iprograms' responses to our memorandum request; in afew cases, they were obtained from other sources,primarily reports in the Women's Studies_ Newsletter.Variation in nomenclature and in area of emphasis fordegrees offered in conjunction with departments anduniversity programs are apparent in the "Nature ofDegree" column.
A total of 306 bachelor's degree graduates werereported to us by 19 different women's studiesprograms. (The NCES data, discussed in section 1,indicate at least 38 additional person') who obtained aB.A. in women's studies in the period 1975-77. Wecan thus document at least 344 "verified" degreesconferred -- knowing that we don't "know" about limy_more.) Table 1 categorizes the reported postgraduateactivities of 104 graduates, 34 percent of thoseidentified here, on the basis of the informationavailable from the programs.
23
AVAILABLE FOLLORP INFORMATION: BACC
DEGREES IN WOMEN'S STUDIES
U of, Santa CruColorado, U of, Boulder
Cornell U
Hawaii, U of MannHenderson. 5 U
Illinois, U ofKansas, U ofMinnesota*, U ofNew York. S U of AlbanyNew York, S U of Buffalo
New York, S U C, New Peitz
Northern Colorado UPittsburgh, U of
Fitter C
South Florida, U of
Towson S U
Utah, U of
Washington, U of, Seattle
chita S
19741972
19751974
1972197519'1
1972
1978
19741972
1172
1971
1970
1974
UREA
Nature of Deg raduates
Individualized majorSelfdesigned inde-pendent major
Liberal studiesDouble major in WS
and sociologyIndividualized planWomen's studiesWomen.' studiesSelf- designed major
B.A. in Amai:=studies with con-centration in W5
Contract major
Individualized majorSelf-designed major
Interdisciplinarysocial science
General studies artand science major
Bachelor of univer-sity studies
General interdisci-plinary studies
Women's studiesMJC-
53
2
13
3
4
25
IS
a
36
37
6
9
63
10
TOTALS*
Percent "tracked" * 342
* The 19 institutions for which graduate fol.owup information is
available represent 23 percent of all institutions currently
designated an offering a B.A. in "Women.' Studies Programs" (1978).
4 0 24
Post- Craduaca Act 'y
GraduatesTracked
o
and Graduate__school Enrollmen
Ovrrent Full-TimeE® nt Fart-Time
SeekingEmployment
LauSchool
Woman-Related Other Related Other
or Temp.Employment
28
1
211
9
2
1
7
7
3
9
17
4
4
1
1
1
3
-
-
-
1
-
-
1
-
2
2
-
--
4
-
-
-
2
-
1
-
-2
--
-
1
7
1
2
-2
-
2
-
1
-
9
17-
1
3
4
2
4
-
-
1
-
-
-
-
.
-
--
-
-
-
-
2
104 14
100% 13%
18
172 17%
25
37
362
5
5Z
Approximately 40 percent of the B.A. graduates
in this sample, including those who enter law schools,were enrolled in or have completed professional oradvanced degree programs. Law was a frequently cited
choice; 13 percent of the 104 B.A. graduates trackedhere attend or have completed law school.
Of the B.A. graduates for whom followup dataare available, 26 percent entered various graduate
programs. At least one-third were reported as"continuing in women's studies," or described as"doing graduate research in women's studies"; these
are the alumnae assigned to the "Woman-Related"category of graduate school enrollment in table 1.
Numbers of graduates characterized by any one otherdescriptor were not sufficient to allow for any but an"Other" category; however, that designation should notsuggest that these students are not bringing feministperspectives and concerns to their continuing studies.
"Woman-related" was also frequently used byprogram respondents to describe graduates' current
employment, amd we listed some alumnae in this employ-ment category on the basis of job titles reported;for example, Federal Women's Program Coordinatoror Director, Rape Crisis Center. Employment forwhich women's studies has not been a traditional-prerequisite, however useful and important it might be(as in the work of elementary school teaching), wasassigned here to the "Other" category of currentemployment.
Approximately half (53 percent) of the B.A.graduates tracked are regularly employed. One-third
of these are employed in jobs perceived as "Woman-Related," but one assumes that all women's studiesgraduates can and do use their feminist perspectiveand training in whatever employment setting theyenter. A program director quoted one graduate whoreported that her position as a public librarian wasnot meant to be woman-related, but that she had made
it so.
26
Only two B.A. programs reported information onalumnae who were employed part-time or temporarily;two different programs reported on several graduateswhom they identified as seeking employment. Table 1indicates that 6 percent of the graduates tracked fallinto these presumably overlapping categories. Notunexpectedly, some graduates undertake further studyand a job simultaneously; unless employment appearedto dominate their activities, they were assigned tothe appropriate graduate school category.
Table 1 shows three women's studies programs(Henderson State, SUNY/Buffalo, and the Universityof South Florida) that are associated with particularuniversity programs or departments and whose gradu-ates thus have a double major or its equivalent inthe associated field. Women's studies stlidentsenrolled in autonomous or individualized degreeprograms in women's studies frequently have electedsecond majors, but we did not receive sufficientfollowup information distinguishing double majors andtheir second fields to categorize or compare theiractivities here. In addition to the 37 graduatesreported in interdisciplinary social science and the36 whose women's studies concentration vms withinAmerican studies, program coordinators identifiedB.A. graduates with second majors in psychology (4),English (4), sociology (3), anthropology (2), and1 each in education, French, mass communications,rehabilitation therapy, and social welfare.
Graduates with Certificates or MinorsIn Women's Studies
Table 2 contains information available to this
study on graduates whose baccalaureate degreesincluded a certificate or minor in women's studies. A.
total of 222 certificate or minor gradLates werereported by 15 women's studies programs; table 2categorizes the reported postgraduate activities of 81(36 percent) of these students, whose pattern ofpostgraduate study and employment is generally similarto that for B.A. graduates.
27
TABLE 2 AVAILABLE FOLLOWUP INFORMATION: CERTIFICATES
AND MINORS IN WOMEN'S STUDIES
nstitutien*Certificate_Established
Nature ofCertificate Graduates
California, U of, L A 1975 Speci litstion 21
Cincinnati, U of 1976 Certificate 5
Colorado. U of, Boulder 1974 Corti ice-4e 8
Florida S U 1975 Certificate 5
Indiana U 1978 Certificate 6
doreey City S C .., Minor 1
Michigan S U 1971 Thematicconcentration 18
New ?leaico, U of ** -- 8
Nev York S U. Nov Pal x 1975 Minor 29
Northeastern ILlicoi 1978 Minor 2
Northern Colorado U 1974 Minor 20
Oregon. U of 1974 Certificate 37
Pittsburgh, U of 1972 Certificate 38
Portland S U 1975 Certificate 22
Towson S U 1971 Minor 2
201.1LE 222
Percent "Tracked" 36%
*The 15 institutions for Which fullovup information is available oncertificate and minor recipients represent 16 percent of all institutionscurrently designated as offering certificates or minors in "Women's StudiesPrograms" (1978).
**The University of Nev Mexico offers courses, internships, and opportunitiesfor undergraduate research in women's studies, but does not grant degrees,certificates, or minors- im vomen's studies.
28
Post- Graduate Activities
GraduatesTracked
EAnolLau
School
Professionaland Graduate
EnrollmentCurrent Full-Time
Em-ln entPart-Timeor Ten
KnoutTo BeSeeking
Em n
-..'Jmad*
Related OtherWoman-Re_ d Otter
5
45
.5
9
8
5
2
-
2214.
1
-
--
-
1
-
-
2
1
1
1
2
-
--
-
4
-
-
-
1
1
3
-
3
1
--
2
3
-
-
-
1
3
3
4-
-
5
--
3
1
2
1
2,,
-
6
10
-
-
-
1
-
-
1
-
=
4
-
-1
-
1
-
--
1
-
-
-
81
100%
1 11 14
14% 17% 222 32%
18 26,
29
7 4
5%
Comparison of tables 2 and 1 shows one majordifference -- the proportion of graduates reported whoenter law school: only 1 percent of those with acertificate or minor identified here versus 13 percentidentified in the B.A. graduate population. Our
sample is too small to permit significant generaliza-tions explaining this statistic, and, frankly, we haveno hypothesis to suggest.
The proportion of those certificate /minorgraduates entering graduate study is 31 percent,slightly higher than the 26 percent of B.A. graduatesin this category. The proportion of those regularlyemployed is nearly identical: 54 percent with acertificate or minor and 93 percent with a B.A. inwomen's studies.
The exploratory, secondary nature of this studyprecluded the uce of formal research procedures,questionnaires, or structured personal interviews.
Data provided to us came in various formats from thedifferent women's studies programs reporting, and didnot permit categorization of graduates' activities
in a mode that would allow for extensive criticalanalyses. For some alumnae, we received detaileddescriptions of employment and/or graduate study,with accompanying biographical sketches; for °the-
(sometimes from the same institution), only a generalstatement about the students' employment or ,:cuing
study. For some, a description of the em layer orfield was supplied, but not the particular job oroccupation.
Tables 1 and 2 show categorizations we were ableto make, assigning some graduates to the "Woman-Related" category of graduate study or full-timeemployment. In this sample, one-third of the B.A.
graduates undertaking graduate study or a full-time
job were categorized as in "Woman-Related" activities;
a higher proportion of those receiving certificates orminors are identified as studying (45 percent) orworking (41 percent) in woman-related areas. No
46 30
reason for this differece is apparent, and it shouldbe interpreted if at all with caution.
Recipients of certificates/minors appear somewhatmore likely to be "Seeking Employment" or "EmployedPart-Time or Temporarily" than are B.A. graduates,according to the data reported in tables 1 and 2.Since information for these two categories came fromonly four of the 19 B.A. programs, more data clearlyare needed to make reliable comparisons of the numbersand percentages of graduates seeking employment witheach type of credentia1.5
Some information was given on the second majorsof a number of B.A. graduates. Three certificateprograms listed the majors of students currentlyenrolled and of a few graduates, as shown in table2a. Such information is obviously needed on a muchlarger and more comprehensive scale to permit com-parison between career patterns and the employabilityof alumnae who majored in these various fields with,and without, women's studies as a second major or areaof concentration.
Beyond Tables 1 and 2:further uestLomInuages_tedAnswers
This study could not explore in any depth ordetail the choices, intentions, or emphases of women'sstudies alumnae entering graduate or professionalprograms or their experiences during and aftergraduate school and professional training. Onewould surely wish to know more about those continuingin women's studies: their major/related fields,research, and thesis topics; the relation of theirundergraduate course work to the graduate curriculumchosen or required; their ability to obtain scholar-ships, fellowships, and graduate assistantships; andtheir intended or first employment after obtaining thegraduate degree or credential.
It is difficult to know precisely how thesegraduates and their undergraduate advisors are
31
TABLE 2a
I
MAJORS OF =up's STUDIESCERTIFICATE STUDENTS/GRADUATES FROM THREE PROGRAMS
Major Fields of Stu Number Percent*
Psychology 16 17
Sociology/social work 13 14
English 10 11
General studies 8 8
Government/political science 8 8
Business/accounting 7 7
Life sciences 7 7
Education (elementary, English,
music) 5 5
Anthropology 4 4
Communications 3 3
Foreign language 3 3
Arts and letters 2 2
Economics 2 2
Social sciences 2 2
Chemistry, engineering, history,interior design, philosophy(one each) 5 5
95 98%
*Total percentage less than 100 due to rounding
prcedure.
Sources; Frieze, 1978; Frye, 1979; Goens, 1979.
32
defining graduate study in "woman-related" areas;similar definitional difficulties-at-Ise When 'One-attempts to classify the employment activities ofwomen's studies geadliatee.
The program chair at San Diego State Universitysurveyed women's studies minors enrolled on thatcampus to learn .about their intended career plans.She classified student responses as traditional ornontraditional for women (Boxer, 1979):
Career Manned Students Res_ ywoding
Teaching (elemen-tary/
S- 1978 Pall 1978Nu Numbe z
secondary) 103 15.2 103 16.3
Nursing, socialwork, counseling,librarian 88 13,0 97 15.3
Office work 19 2.8 26 4.1
Other worktraditionallydone by women 56 8.3 46 7.3
Work not tradi-tionally doneby women 326 48.0 290 45.7
One followup survey from the University of Washington(Bose et al., 1976) listed the activities of grad-uates, emphasizing traditional, nontraditional, orwomen's studies-related classifications:
Number ofGraduates
6
4
2
2
Type of Job
Supervisory or managerialTraditional woman's jobNontraditional jobJob directly relating towomen's studies
Graduate studyNot employed
Some version of a tripartite typology seems mostlikely-to begin torefiect the collective experienceof women's studies graduates: traditional "female"
work; work in fields or occupations not traditionalfor women; "new female/feminist jobs, resulting fromor connected to the women's movement. The last would
include, for example, positions in rape crisiscenters, battered spouse shelters or diplaced home-makers programs, campus or community women's centers,affirmative action offices, sex equity projects,women's studies research institutes, advocacy andlobbying groups, and special women's programs invarious organizations with feminist publications,counseling services, and arts projects.
Even so, however, there will be problems inclassification. The lawyer or professor in a fieldnot traditional for women, like the elementary school
teacher or social worker in a traditionally femalefield, may each perceive herself to be doing woman-related work on the basis of actual task;} undertakenor the consciousness she brings to work assigned;those graduates employed in research, delivery of
health and social services, curriculum development,
personnel, ,management/administration, or editorial
work'by, for, and about women and women's concernswould "traditionally" be tabulated as employed in
either traditionally female or nontraditionally femalework.
It will probably be useful and necessary forfuture researchers to attempt to gather career data onwomen's studies graduates that can be classified both
in established academic and traditional labor force
categories and in categories particular to women's
otudies. More data are also needed to allow foranalysis of the "quality" of employment of women'sstudies graduates, not only part-time or full-time,
but temporary or continuing, "survival," or career
level with opportunity for advancement. In each case,
one would also want to know whether the traditionallyless desirable employment status was due to choice,
34
necessity, or lack of options. For some women, as forsome men, part-time work may be preferred, and forothers it may be necessary for at least periods oftime.o
Critical examination of the career activities ofwomen's studies graduates should also be designed topermit both traditional and feminist analyses o dataon those alumnae who are not in the paid work force,whether seeking or not seeking salaried employment.As with female work force participation in general,attention is required to the implications both oftechnical definitions of unemployment (that mayunderrepresent numbers of persons who would word ifwork were available) and of technical definitions ofwork (that may undervalue activities of workers whoare not paid). Graduates engaged in creative,personally satisfying, and socially useful work -- ascommunity activists and volunteers; as caretakers ofthe young, the ill and the elderly; as artists andcraftspeople; as unpaid associates in a partner orspouse's job -- may all be considered or considerthemselves to be "using their degrees," and might beclassified by future researchers in some more imagina-tive category than simply "unemployed."
Even if the data available to us were moredetailed and more complete, they would still onlyrepresent the beginning of a data base for continuingstudy. Tracking and followup studies of any studentpopulation shortly after graduation are likely toprovidi only a first indication of more complexpatterns, and such may be even more so the case withthis population.
Seven Years Later and other materials availableto this study describe women's studies students asfrequently older than the traditional undergraduate attime of enrollment. Other evidence suggests that somestudents are uncertain of career goals; they attendcollege intermittently and change their program of
35
study more than once. Some are in periods of transi-tion: recently widowed, separated or divorced, orshifting from major childraising responsibility. Some
may be ambivalent about entering or reentering thework force-after years of part-time, low-status, orvolunteer work; many will need to work at whateveremployment is available while supporting dependent
children, repaying student loans, considering andsaving for further study, or waiting for commitmentsof/to a spouse partner to permit relocation.
Our data reveal something about the activities of34 percent of the B.A. graduates tracked here and36 percent of the minor/certificate recipients identi-fied, but we cannot know with any certainty what theother 65 percent are doing, will do, or want to do tomake use of their degrees and their lives. Full-time
employment may not be the ultimate goal of allstudents enrolling in women's studies. Information
from responses to program surveys indicates that a
number of studepts enroll for personal growth anddevelopment notQielated directly to obtaining employ-ment. Volunteer and political activities reported bygraduates may be in expectation of developing employ-ment, in addition to or in lieu of employment or as alife-style choice of primary activity.
While the information presented in this study isinsufficient to allow for the sorts of analysesprojected here, examples of the present career andnvocational activities of some women's studiesgraduates, culled from correspondence, program litera-ture, and followup surveys, appear to confirm the
positive intuitions of persons in the field. A
preliminary answer to the frequenc query, "But what
can a person do with 'a degree in women's studies?"Would be that the options are unlimited.
M.A. Graduates and Graduate in Studies
Table 3 shows information available to this study
on recipients of M.A. degrees in women's studies or
36
M.A. graduates whoae minor or area of concentrationWas women's studies.
At least 230 M.A. graduates are identified hereby 10 women's studies programs that responded to ourrequest for.information'or that had responded to the1978 NWSA graduate program questionnaire. (Seeappendix 13 for 1978 listing of 25 women's studiesprograms identified as offering graduate degrees.')
Approximations in this table reflect the sparseand soft data provided. Information on M.A. grad-uates' postgraduate activities here comes primarilyfrom two programs, George Washington University andSarah Lawrence '''liege, both of which are located inor near major metropolitan areas.
Goddard-Cambridge, the oldest graduate levelwomen's studies program, probably has the largestnumber of graduates to date. Its emphasis on collec-tive study and problem-oriented field work (in topicareas including feminist theory, feminist therapy, andwomen in the labor force) offers career-relatedexperience in a variety of woman-related settings.Information on the further education and employmentactivities of its graduates would be of particularinterest to future research on women's studiesgraduates.
111,:t only information available to this study was
an article in the Goddard College Alumni newspaper,The Silo (spring 1979), profiling one graduate nowdirecting a Federal grant to Goddard for the develop-ment of women's studies programming for low-income
urban and rural community women. She may be typicalof some significant proportion of women's studies'graduate students in this and other programs in having
enrolled, in part, to integrate political and paidwork experience after a history of women's movementinvolvement and employment as -a community mentalhealth services counselor.
37
TABLE AVAII.AEL4 TOIJANUW INFORMATION: M.A. DEGRES
PSDIN88111 18 WORM'S 8TUUIRE
n itutien*Degree
Established NatureofRegree Graduates
California S U . Chico 1973 Individualized major 3
Cornell U 1972 Interdisciplinary minor {at least 5**)
Gcarge Washington U 1973 Special studies concen-tration 79
Goddard-Csubridge Graduate Feminist studiesIll' Aram in Social Change 1971 (collective or
individualized) 65 to 80
New York, SU of Buffalo 1972 Concentration inAmerican studies CA. 20
Northeastern Illinoil 1971 Concentration insocial science; at least 9
Concentration inAmerican studies 3
Northern Colorado, U of -- School for educationalchange and development at least 1
San Jose S U 1972 Social science withemphasia on women CA. 20
Sarah Lawrence C 0 1972 Wmee's history program 24
Wichita S U 1971 Liberal studies
TOTALS: at least 230
rceut "tracked ": 37%
*The 10 institutions for which graduate followup information is availablerepresent 40 percent of all institutions identified by NWSA as offeringM.A. degrees in women's studies.
**This minor is for M.A.'s and Ph.D.'s majoring ita fields other than women'sstudies; these values were not counted amoug totals in this table.
4.0te group of graduates hag gone to law school or into "affirmative action"jobs; the rest have taken low-level administrative "CEiA-type" jobs.
r#Nina are teaching is community colleges; other. are employed in communityadministration and CETAfunded jobs.
33
Feat-G- dunte Act v 6
Graduate and Current
Graduates Professional Iltit SeekingTracked School Enrollment Iruill'ilne-i. Eoployoent Volunteers
-
- -
46 1 19 18 6 2
- -
- - -
"several "" "moat teach" -
- 3 -
1 1
9 - at least 9+4 - -
19 4 15 - - -
3 2 -
84 6 51 18 6
1001 71 611 212 71
39
The three Chic,) State graduates all concentratedin the "Counseling Women" focus available in thatprogram. Cornell (Women's Studies Newsletter, fall1978, p. 22) reported:
fewer thin a dozen graduates officiallyelecting a women's studies minor...perhapsten times that many who take women's studiescourses each term and develop specialtiesin fields closely allied to women's studies.Graduates go on to teach women's studies;to edit journals related to our new inter-disciplinary field; to administer affirma-tive action programs in business, educa-tion and industry; and to work in woren'sprograms in counseling, organizing, andlobbying.
Most of those who have completed the M.A. programat Northeastern have been public school teachers whocontinued working at their teaching jobs. A few havecontinued for the Ph.D., and one has taken a teacher/counselor position at Northeastern in an alternatedegree program.
Northern Colorado reports a graduate studentpursuing a D.A. in women's history; a number of othersenrolled there plan to combine women's studies withcoursework in :1e School of Education, in preparationfor junior and senior high school teaching. One ofthe two Wichita State graduates employed teachesminority studies at Wichita State; the other is an
assistant dean of student services at a midwesternuniversity.
The M.A. programs at Sarah Lawrence and GeorgeWashington gave followup information on alumnae whohad graduated through June 1977. Four graduates ofthe Sarah Lawrence M.A. in women's history wereworking toward the Ph.D. at Columbia, Rutgers,Stanford, and Yale; their respective fields were notdesignated, but were presumed to be history. Seven
40
other Sarah Lawrence graduates occupied administrativepositions: five education-related; one involvingplanning and developing juvenile programs at the statelevel; and one directing a women's crisis center. One
of these alumnae was teaching high school, and sevenwere teaching at small colleges.
Activities of the first 46 alumnae of the GeorgeWashington University Master of Arts in specialstudies with a concentration in women's studies aredescribed in a graduate student research report(Streicher, 1977). Data reported in table 3 show thatof these 46 graduates tracked, 19 were then employedfull-Lime and 18 part-time, and 1 was enrolled in a
Ph.D. program. Two-thirds of the jobs held by theseGWU graduates were woman-related, including three ofthe four in private business. Nine of these graduatesworked in various levels of office administration andmanagement; nine in counseling or career education;four as consultants; three as researchers; two asteachers; two as office staff workers; one each as areference librarian, actress, and writer. Theirprincipal employers were universities, local andFederal Government, and private organizations.°
Table 3 shows that some information was avail-able on postgradue activities on 84 (37 percent) ofthe 230 M.A. gradUates identified to this study.Seven percent were continuing to advanced graduatestudy; 61 percent were employed full -time and 21percent part-time; 7 percent were seeking employment;
and 4 percent worked as volunteers. (Since a largeproportion of the followup data in table 3 is from the1977 survey of George Washington University alumnae,it may not necessarily be representative of thenational population of women's studies graduates. On
the basis of information available here, GWU graduatesappear less likely to be employed in education-relatedwork, and more likely to be in government or policy-
related employment.)
Table 3 data, when compared with national statis-tics on educated working women, indicate that thiscohort of M.A. degree graduates in women's studiesis more likely to be employed full-time than thenational population. Of the graduates in thisstudy, 82 percent of the total are in the work force;nationally, 71 percent of women with 5 or more yearsof college are in the work force. TWenty-one percentof these women's studies M.A. alumnae work part-time,a value comparable to the national statistic of23 percent for women with 4 or more years of college(U.S. Department of Labor, 1376; 1975. Part -time dataare not available nationally for women with graduatedegrees.)
Comparison of these M.A. graduates with the B.A.and certificate/minor graduates described in tables 1and 2 shows, not unexpectedly, a much higher propor-tion of the undergraduate alumnae entering graduateand professional school. Approximately 80 percentof the M.A. graduates and 60 percent of the B.A.graduates are in the paid work force. In thisparticular sample, which appears to include a highproportion of older, re-entry women with M.A. degrees,about one-fourth of the M.A. graduates who areemployed work only part-time in the paid work force.A much smaller proportion, 8 percent, of the employedB.A. graduates work only part-time.
We had hypothesized that records on graduatestudents would be relatively available, since theytypically go through a number of procedures in thecourse of fulfilling graduate degree requirements, andextra efforts were made in the development of thisstudy to contact women's studies programs ident ledas offering graduate degrees.
As was true of undergraduate, so with graduatedegrees: one must assume some number of studentsdeveloping individualized degree programs in women'sstudies who are not identified to women's studies
2
programs and their administrators, or whose institu-
tiona do not have women's studies programs. While the
certificate, minor, or concentration in women's
studies (or double major, formal or informal) weremore likely to be visible women's studies credentials
for undergraduates, imLL1e minors in women's studiesmay be more individualized at this time, and thus thepopulation formally or informally electing them may bemore difficult to identify.
The graduate programs that supplied data herewere all established by 1973, and might have beenexpected to have been able to have supplied more dataand followup information on their graduates. That
recordkeaping has heretofore been inadequate and thatso few followup surveys of graduates are available
appear to be oversights of women's studies pro-grams and reflect on the lack of resources for these
programs. Followup surveys can function as an evalua-tion tool for a program, serve as a public relations
instrument, contribute to maintaining lines of com-munications between former and current studentsand the program, and help to build a valuable network
for feminists "in the field."9
While there are many questions to ask of the data
that are available, they are not really sufficient
for detailed analyses. For projections and future
research in this area, it will be necessary forwomen's studiec, programs to begin to document the date
each degree (or credential) is established, annual
student enrollment in each program, numbers of degree
candidates, attrition rates,. and numbers of degreerecipients, along with sufficient descriptive anddemographic data to establish a profile of thesestudents and their programs of study. Most programs
have had a practice of maintaining records of numbers
of students enrolled in each women's studies course,
but few have undertaken (or asked their institutions
43
to provide) the sort of transcript analysis thatmight reveal multiple registrations equivalent to acredential requirement. This type of recordkeeping,along with periodic followup surveys of alumnae,ideally should become routine for all women's studiesprograms.
Meanwhile, it is important to reemphasize herethe exploratory nature of the information in tables1, 2, and 3 and the fact that it was supplied by37 percent of those women's studies programs offeringsome type of credential, only 22 percent of whichcontributed quantitative data. The institutions thatcounted women's studies alumnae and contributed thenumbers to this planning study provided followupinformation for only 35 percent of these graduates:34 percent of those with B.A.'s, 36 percent of thosewith undergraduate certificates and minors, and37 percent of M.A. graduates. Thus we have limitedavailable information on a limited number of graduatesfrom a limited sample of the women's studies programsoffering degrees.
What are the other 65 percent doing? Is theirfailure to respond or identify themselves to theprograms associated with dissatisfaction with currentemployment or embarrassment in admitting un- orunderemployment? We can offer no decisive answerto these questionr. but we did attempt to explorethe problem further: our analysis is described inappendix C. It tentatively suggests that Lthd propor-tion of graduate respondiints and nonrespondentsseeking employment are similar, thus reinforcingthe apparent cross-validity of the several smallsubsamples reported here. Until more is known,however, about the postgraduate activities of non-respondents, and of graduates not identified, thesepreliminary findings cannot reliably be extrapolatedcr assumed to represent the entire population ofwomen's studies graduates.
44
On the Ph.D. in Women's StudiesAnd Ph.D.'s in Women's Studies
The "Readers Speakout" column of the fall 1973Women'sStudies Newsletter included a letter from twoJune 1978 graduates of the History of Consciousnessprogram at the University of California at SantaCruz. Both had concentrated in women's studies withinthat interdisc4plinary graduate program and had helpedto create a feminist subgroup there. Their disserta-tions were, respectively, on ."The Social Constructionof Female Sexual Experience" and on Matilda JoslynGage, a nineteenth century American feminist. Their
diplomas included what that program refers to as a
parenthetical degree notation: "Doctor of Philosophyin History of Consciousness (Women's Studies)." Now
employed as faculty/administrators in women's studiesprograms, they were "very curious to know whether weare the first two Ph.D's in the area of women'sstudies in this country," and asked anyone withinformation to respond to them.
No responses have come to the Newsletter to date;literature or data on Ph.D graduates in women'sstudies (and their postgraduate activities) arevirtually nonexistent. These two graduates may well
be (among) the first whose diplomas acknowledge andrecord doctoral work in women's studies, but they aresurely not the first who have pursued such study andperceived themselves to be doing so.
As with the B.A. and M.A., the Ph.D. in women'sstudies can be understood to refer to:
-__
1. Students who offer women's studies as a
minor field of study within or adjacentto the departmental or school Ph.D.: grad-
uates, for example, with a minor in women'sstudies established in the Department ofEnglish at the University of Arizona, or the"women's history" option offered in manyinstitutions; untabulated numbers of studentswho have developed formal or informal areas
45
of concentration in women's studies as partof a doctoral program in other establishedfields and disciplines.
2. Students who design individualized, inter-disciplinary, or committee degrees in women'sstudies, as offered "by permission" in mostuniversities, in special progrwris at many,and as the sole form of degree in a few. The
iSanta Cruz graduates could be included inthis category.
Students whose program of study and researchin a traditional field or discipline isdirected to a feminist thesis project and /orthe acquisition of woman-related practitionercompetencies. Such a program of study mightwell be the rather private enterprise of aparticular student and her advisor(s), butsome departments in various fields are comingto be known as supportive of student interestin women's studies because of the presence offeminists on their faculties and/or theirworking relationship with a campus women'sstudies program or research center.
Woodrow Wilson FellowskipEranT1
Since 1974, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellow-ship Foundation has offered Women's Studies ResearchGrants for Doctoral Candidates. The 110 fellowshiprecipients (as of 1978-79) -- and the additionalnumber of applicants not selected for this particularaward -- comprise one significant sample of thepopulation of doctoral graduates in women's studies,most of whom would be included in the third categoryabove.
Some information on the Wilson Women's StudiesFellows was hared with this study. That unpublishedfollowup data indicate that these persons thus identi-fied with women's studies are completing their degrees
46
and finding first employment at rates that appear tocompare favorably with others in their tIaditional
fields and in academia generally. This group ofgraduates also reflects at least part of the range ofresearch and teaching interests represented in women'sstudies.°
The 20 1978-79 fellows (including one man) arein doctoral programs in history (7), English (5),psychology (3), and sociology, anthropology, politicalscience, and American civilization (1 each). Their
research topics include women in the forest service,in Northwest Indian tribes, and in San Franciscotrade unions; on the American college campus, inseventeenth century England, and in prerevolutionaryRussia. Their studies range from sexuality in theworkplace to structural and intrapersonal supports
for equality between working spouses; from psycho-therapists' responses to client sexual material to the
image of women in Christina Rossetti's poetry; frominfant sex differences to the life of Emma Goldman.
The 18 Wilson fellows elected in 1977 were allstill completing their dissertations as of summer 1978
in history (6), art history (2), oriental studies (2),
economics (2), English (2), and history of science andmedicine, architecture, comparative culture, music,
and higher education/English (1 each). Five were
known to be currently employed in academic work asinstructors, lecturers, assistant professors, orresearchers.
Eighteen 1976 fellows (including one man)had studied topics ranging from Tudor women towomen workers in the Mexican textile industry; educa-
tional history to educational theory; women as candi-dates to women and men in transitional clerical andcraft occupations; sexual inequality and popula-tion dynamics in India to married women's propertyrights in nineteenth century New York. Their degrees
included history (8), English (2), anthropology (2),
American civilization (2), and clinical psychology,
47
education, political science, and administrativesciences (1 each), Three had completed the Ph.D.by spring 1973; the rest expected to do so thatyear. The three who had completed their degrees wereemployed as assistant professor, visiting assistantprofessor, and clinical fellow. Of the ABD's (all butdissertation (pre-Ph.D.)), five were employed ingraduate-lev-1 positions: graduate fellow, lecturer,adjunct faculty, and two as assistant professors.
In 1975-76, 27 fellowships were awarded tostudents completing degrees in history (12), English(4), psychology (4), anthropology (2), and French, arthistory, agricultural economics, sociology, andreligious studies (1 each). Seventeen were known tohave completed their degrees; six expected theirdegrees in 1978. (No information was available ondegree status or employment of three of these fellows;one, now employed as a Federal contract negotiator,was reported as possibly withdrawing from her degreeprogram.) Seventeen of the 1975-76 fellows wereemployed: five as instructors, eight as assistantprofessors, one as an associate professor, and five inacademic administration, legislative research, and
psychotherapy. Two held postdoctoral fellowships.
Twenty-one of the 27 1974-75 fellows had com-pleted the Ph.D. by summer 1978; four expected to doso in 1978, and one by 1979. (No degree status or em-ployment information was available on one of thatyear's fellows.) These first fellowships went to stu-dents in history (11), anthropology (4), psychology(3), English (3), sociology (2), and economics, arthistory, political science, and linguistics (1 each).Twenty were known to be employed: 12 as assistantprofessors, and the others as lecturers, instructors,research fellows and associates, an archivist, and astaff member for women's concerns on the Board of HomeMinistries, United Church of Christ. Anecdotal infor-mation reports and press releases from the Founda-tion suggests that many of these and subsequent grad-uates are having their research published and/or arebeing approached by various agencies as consultants.
48
6
These graduates' degrees and subsequent academic
appointments will not, in almost all cases, be desig-
nated or reported as "women's studies." Had they not
been awarded this prestigious fellowship, they and
others like them might only be visible and identifi-
abl,?, to researchers on women's studies graduates on
the basis of dissertation titles and subsequent
scholarly or professional activity. It may bepossible and necessary to identify for further study
similar populations: recipients of research awards
from the American Association of University Women,
Business and Professional Women's Foundation, and the
like; participants in the vario'is women-related
research awards competitions sponsored by organiza-
tions like the National Association of Women Deans,Administrators and Counselors and by women's caucuses
in many of the disciplines; and applicants for and
recipients of postdoctoral research fellowships
sponsored by the National Institute of Education'sMinorities and Women's program.
Similar problems of identification exist, and
continue, when the population of Ph.D's in women's
studies is extended to include persons whose formal
credentials and training predate any possibility of
having been considered "women's studies."
The senior faculty committee judging the 1977-78
Wilson fellowship competition, e.g., with professorial
titles and appointments in English, sociology, and
history, are described by the Foundation as "s&tolars
noted for their work in women's studies"; they are
that, but not by official institutional credential or
appointment. The judges for 1979 are described as"knowledgeable about their own fields and women's
studies"; the Foundation press release identified
them by including information on feminist scholarly
publication or professional activity in addition to
the traditional identification by department and
institution. For some teacher/scholars, work in
"their own field" may continue parallel to work
considered "women's studies"; for others, feminist
49
teaching and research interests may come (and beallowed) to infuse all professional activities.
Identification of Women's Studies
Women's studies graduates with a Ph.D. , and thosePh.D.'s whose work in women's studies, was done aftercompletion of their degree whether doing it,independently, at conferences, in formal or informedseminars, study groups, institutes, or researchprograms may ultimately be identifiable throughdata and infOrmation available or being gathered bywomen's caucuses and commissions in the various fieldsand disciplines, through published or funded researchand activity. and through affiliation with women'sstudies programs and projects and the National Women'sStudies Association.
Persons whose research, teaching, and politicalactivities created and are still creating_ women'sstudies programs and courses were listed in Who's Whoand Where in Women's Studies (Berkowitz et al.,1974), but that listing is long since dated andinadequate. An updated edition would be a major anduseful project.
Many of those listed in that volume are now insecond or third careers as educational administratorsor in related work, either and both because theiractivity as feminist faculty in traditional depart-ments was not rewarded with tenure or because it madethem visible, gave them administrative skills, and ledthem from the classroom. Some tracking and followupof this group might be possible in coordination withthe American Council on Education's National Identifi-cation Program for the Advancement of Women in HigherEducation Administration, with the several HERS(Mid-Atlantic, New England, Southwest) Projects thatoffer institutes and placement rosters for womenadministrators, and with similar state-based projectsand networkr
50
Just as the concern of undergraduates about "whatyou can do with a degree in women's studies" oftenmasks fear that the degree will label them negatively
to persons in the marketplace hostile to the women's
movement, so many who are involved in won's studiesin the academic marketplace are concerned thatfeminist involvement and scholarship are still pro-fessionally dangerous, over and beyond existingdiscrimination against women as a class. Pressures
on lesbian and Third World women, and those whowish to teach and study .about them, are felt to be
particularly strong. With tenure and promotion (and
grants and awards) increasingly difficult to obtainfor junior faculty still being h:Lred into tenure-track positions, the academic reward structure is not
likely to favor those-who work outside departmental
priorities.
Most research to date related to affirmativeaction and status of women in the professions has been
devoted to establishing a data base .lad analyses of
academic and professional career patterns that include
sex, race, and marital status with such traditionalindicators as age, field, date and place of degree,
publications, and the like. More work will be needed
to define and distinguish women's studies and feministindicators es well, if we are to be able to idm.,ify
and track the full spectrum of women's studies grad-
uates. The call for additional studies in the preface
to this series speaks to this need in another fashion,
as dc other studies in this series.
Women's studies may be described as having a dual
mandate: the reexamination and reconstruction of anexisting body of knowledge, and the creation of newmethodologies, structures, and areas of study for
research and teaching. Seen in relation to itsstudents and graduates, the women's studies mandate is
to educate all students to be whole persons -- able to
support themselves and to effect change for women, in
whatever work they choose to do and to educatethose students who will themselves continue to be
51
involved in women's studies in the most particularmeaning of that term: to become women's studiesteachers, scholars, researchers, and educators.
There is not yet clear consensus in the field onwhat might or should constitute a Ph.D. in women'sstudies. In the short run, most of those seeking.faculty appointments or professional positions willchoose or need to obtain and maintain credential,contacts, and credibility in an established fieldwhile developing and participating in the growth of aninterdisciplinary/feminist paradigm. Not all Ph.D,graduates in women's studies, ,however defined, willseek or obtain academic employment. All will profit,as would women generally, if there were generalacceptance of one of the suggested activities includedin a handout of the New Jersey Planning Committee forACE's National Identification Program: "encouragejob descriptions which focus on competencies requiredas well as traditional educational experience andtraining."
Related Po ulationsandData Sources
Future research on career patterns and life/work competencies of women's studies graduateswill necessarily involve comparisons with otherpopulations -- graduates of both traditional andnontraditional education and training programs.Among other questions, comparisons will address therelative success of wom.en's studies graduates inobtaining and performing work in both traditionallymale and female fields and their success in creatingand pursuing new roles and occupations.
Graduates of TraditionalAnd Interdisciplinary Programs
"Compared with whom?" is a question that may havemultiple answers, depending on the purposes andcontext of future research projects. The most obviouscomparison is with populations with traditional
52
66
degrees and credentials in such fields as education,psychology, counseling, and political science to test"how well" (or better, or differently) women'sstudies graduates do in relation to persons tradi-tionally trained for work in such fields.
One preliminary finding of this study is that
women's studies students generally have traditionaltraining and credentials, as well as the experience,perspective, and substantive knowledge provided by
women's studies programg and courses. With that inmind, researchers will, however, want to comparecareer patterns of particular grbups of women'sstudies graduates with alumnae (and alumni) whohave the same major or degree, as well as to compare
the "success" of women's studies graduates whohave obtained employment in counseling, teaching,journalism, public and political affairs, and the like
with other liberal arts graduates who are similarlyemployed.
Women's studies graduates might also be valuablycompared with graduates of other interdisciplinary
studies programs such as American studies, ethnicstudies, black studies, and urban/environmentalstudies, although there is reason to believe that datacurrently available on those populations will, like
that on women's studies graduates, still be "soft andsparse." Such comparisons could serve, in part, to
explore the ways in which these newer fields impact onthe job market and create new jobs, and the ways inwhich graduates of these interdisciplinary programsshape and market their skills and competencies. 11
Other comparison populations might include
graduates of various general interdisciplinaryprograms and of nontraditional-experimental or
competency-based colleges like Campus Free College,
University of Massachusetts/Boston-College III, and
the College of Human SerVices or Union GraduateSchool. Former participants in activist-committedprograms or groups like the Midwest Academy and the
53
Peace Corps or VISTA miht provide other sorts ofcomparisons. One could elaborate an extensive list
of possible analyses based on the structure andcurricular design of such comparison programs orprojects and their intended outcomes and expressedvalues.
Graduates of ProgramsDesigned for Women
For feminist educational purposes, it will be atleast as -- if not more important to comparewomen's studies graduates with "graduates" of variouseducational programs designed for women, to helpelucidate processes by which curriculum for and aboutwomen and feminist pedagogy contribute to women'scareer development and to' their development of competencies essential do and change the work of theworld.
As noted throughout this monograph, a fundamentalbut difficult priority will be identification andeicamimation of the career patterns of student populations that have taken many women's studies courses ininstitutions without formal women's studies programsand those that have taken courses but not "claimed"the women's studies program credential to which theywould have been entitled.
Students enrolled in women's studies programs incoeducational schools have opportunities for intensiveand significant interactions with other women studentsand with faculty women. These opportunities arelike, if not identicEl to, the experiences associatedwith women's colleges, which have been thought toenhance women's potential for achievement by offeringmore leadership models and opportunities than maledominated institutions. Recent research seems tosuggest that only graduates of the most elite andselective women's colleges are more likely to beoutstanding achievers, in comparison to graduates ofcoeducational or other women's colleges. In fact,their achievement characteristics can be attributed
5i!
to high family socioeconomic level, rather than to the
schools' environment (Oates and Williamson, 1978).
Moreover, even these achievers do not select careers
in nontraditional fields for women (other than
medicine) more frequently than other women college
graduates. Comparison of women's studies graduatesfrom various institutions with alumnae of the Seven
Sisters schools and of other woman's colleges mightintroduce new terms into discussions of the impact of
educational environment on women's achievement.12
Participants in Women-Focused Pro :rams
Recipients of the Business and ProfessionalWomen's Foundation Career Advancement Scholarships
make up a different sort of national population for
which demographic and followup information suitable
for comparison purposes is available. Established in
1969, these scholarships have assisted nearly 2,500
women over 25 years of age at the time of enroll-ment to acquire career-related education. Twelve
percent of the participants were preparing to re-enter
the work force, the remainder to change or advance
their careers. This population differs from women's
studies students and graduates in educational profile,
but shares many characteristics with respect to career
goals and family/marital status. The mean age ofscholarship recipients was 34; mean family income
$7,200; 40 percent were single parents (Business and
Professional Women's Foundation, 1978).
A related set of comparison populations, wouldinclude former participants in women-focused programs
in business and management. The National Association
of Bank Women, incorporated, for example, sponsors
B.A. programs in management to assist the career
development of women currently employed in business
(at Simmons College, Mundelein College, Pitzer
College, and Louisiana State University). And the
Business and Professional Women's Foundation co-
sponsors with Sears Roebuck a loan program to assist
women obtaining an M.A. in management.
55
Other populations for which comparison data maybe available or obtainable are those served by thevarious Federal and foundation-funded projectsdesigned in the last several years to support andexplore means of achieving educational equity forwomen in different settings. Two instances might becited here, both funded by the Women's EducationalEquity Act Program. While the women served by thesetwo projects differ with respect to socioeconomicbackground, they generally share conservative atti-tudes toward women's roles. Both programs combinetraditional curricula with specially designed coursesand projects employing techniques common to women'sstudies programs: student-faculty interaction anddiscussion; peer counseling; use of role models;emphasis on women's history; and opportunities forcommunity interaction and experiential learning.
Project WILL (Women in Leadership Learning)sought to prepare undergraduate women at BaratCollege, a small, liberal arts, Catholic women'scollege in northern Illinois, for leadership positionsin business, education, government, and industry.Participants include traditional undergraduates andadult, re-entry women (Poinsett, 1978). The projectat LaGuardia Community College, New York City, soughtto upgrade employment and advancement opportunitiesfor adult, working-class women, emphasizing self-assessment, life-planning, and the importance ofnontraditional jobs for women (Branch, 1978). Thepopulation at LaGuardia differs significantly frommost women's studies graduates: 75 percent aremarried, 66 percent are older than 34, 50 percentare non-white. Also, the project at LaGuardia is acooperative one, combining employment in an urbansetting with study at a 2-year college; nearly all(87 percent) of the participants indicate theyultimately expect to complete a 4-year degree.13
56
1191D.ellMany college and university programs serving
re-ehtry women are integrated in existing institu-
tional structures. Some are designed primarily toadvise, counsel, and support students returning to the
particular campus to complete the baccalaureate.Others, often but not always part of programs titledContinuing Education for Women, provide for morepossible outcomes, including career counseling;educational referral and refresher skills courses forclients (with and without degrees) making transitions
from homemaking or low status jobs; and intensivetraining and certificate programs leading to specificoccupational roles, often in nontraditional fields.
Some re-entry programs offer noncredit women's
studies courses or coordinate their activities with
(or within) a campus women's center or women's studies
program. Others do not, and they may offer studentslittle exposure to the ideas developed in women'sstudies courses or to overtly feminist consciousness-
raising groups. CEW students have been mostly ofmiddle-class background, with ages ranging from 20 to
70 and educational attainment from high school diploma
to Ph.D. Thus, one could imagine many designs for
comparing women's studies graduates with formerre-entry program, women's center, or CEW participants,
exploring how feminist orientation, age, socioeconomic
background, race, family characteristics, educational
profile, geographic lbcation, and educational program-
matic factors interact to affect career patterns and
competencies14
Other Pop_ulations
Probably difficult to track, but critical to
note here, are the populations consisting .of former
participants or graduates of "free-standing" feminist
educational projects and programs, where training
parallels that in traditional fields, crafts, and
57
disciplines but from a frankly fe7tinist perspec-tive in a worn-related context: The Women WritersProgram, Women's School for Planning and Architecture,Women's Institute of Alternative Psychotherapy, LosAngeles Women's Building, New York Feminist ArtInstitute, and others.
Finally, most difficult to identify, but impor-tant to recall, is the population of active partici-pants in noncredit or !-elf-study learning experiencesrelated to women's studies: reading, watching,listening, and participating in self-initiated andself-paced activities, alone and with others inconsciousness-raising groups, organizations, neighbor-hoods, and women's networks of all sorts.
The number of colleges and universities thatnow award credit for "prior learning" may becomeincreasingly visible to such a population of self-directed women's studies students through publicationslike How to Get Colleg Credit for What You HaveLearned as a Homemaker-and Volunteer Tikstrom et al.,1977). Women's studies programs grant credit for whatthose in experiential and competency -based educationcall "sponsored experiential learning" supervisednonclassroom activities undertaken for academiccredit. Eventually, women's studies programs will beasked to assess prior learning and to grant credittoward a degree in women's studies for experienceS andknowledge gained before enrollment in the program. Itmay be in this process that many "competencies inwomen's studies" will be articulated and defined(Sackmary and Hedrick, 1977).
58
CAREER AND EMPLOYMENT ISSUES IN WOMEN'S STUDIES
This study necessarily -- and, we believe,usefully -- overlaps with another in this series, on"The Relationship Bet,:!een Women's Studies, CareerDevelopment, and Vocational Choice." A brief reviewhere of the impact of women's studies programson student career awareness and development, ofemployment opportunities for women's studies students,and of research and student evaluation of the con-tributions made by women's studies to students' careercompetencies is ofired to provide background andcontext for our data in the particular problem areaof women's studies graduates. This study can andshould be read in conjunction with other and similardiscussion presented in th.1 Bose and Priest-Jonesstudy.
Women's Studies Programs and Career DevelopTent
The probability of a woman's being employed full-time increases as her level of education increases.Women in the United States are increasing both educa-tional attainment and labor force participation inhistorically unprecedented numbers (Almquist, 1977),
with social results yet to be fully charted.
Barriers to their employment and advancement aresystemic, as yet, in almost all fields. Employment
that women's studies students might particularly bepresumed to wish to enter -- service and research/advocacy occupations related to the changing roles,status, and needs of women -- are yet relativelyunestablished, underfunded, and/or vulnerable toeconomic depression and political pressures.
To explore the extent to which women's studiesprograms present themselves as emphasizing or pro-moting careers for students taking courses or obtain-ing credentials in the field, we examined brochures,flyers, proposals, and pamphlets from a sampling of
59
programs, primarily those from the programs respondingto this study. Others reviewed were in the files ofthe National Women's Snidies Association or thewomen's studies programs at the George WashingtonUniversity and the University of Maryland at CollegePark. The coordinator ofthe program at Towson StateUniversity assisted by reporting a review Of herfiles, similarly seeking incidence of reference tocareers for graduates, usefulness of the field Ordegree in employment, descriptions of graduates'activities, and discussion of related employmentactivities and issues. In total, this informalmini-survey reviewed a literature of approximately60 program publications, including some of the earliermaterials from women's studies programs.
Approximately one-third of the materials reviewedmentioned jobs or careers, sometimes specifically(reviewing/revising textbooks, serving as staff of acommission on women), but often only in passing orgeneral terms: "to assist in the transition from hometo school or job," or "prepares students for careerpossibilities in a range of areas including business,social service, politics, law, teaching, and allfields which are _enhanced by an understanding of thisnew content area,"
A few publications mentioned current interest inresearch on women's issues and suggested graduatestudy as an option after the first degree: "Graduateresearch in most of the traditional disciplines hasbegun to focus on the study of women as a promisingnew field for investigation. Graduate programsin Women's Studies are available in several institu-tions...'
Approximately two-thirds of the program publicitywe reviewed described only the scholarly and personalgrowth aspects of women's studies. Whether thisemphasis on liberal arts/affective outcomes, ratherthan on vocational or effective outcomes, is a
function of "women's studies" or is present ber.r7lse,
60
such language was (then) congenial to the generalnorms of the university is impossible 'to evaluate bythis sort of crude content analysis. It does appear,
--however, that while social change was a consistenttheme in the ,development of women's studies programs,career uses,. as .traditionally understood, were arelatively minor consideration in the original publicor self-image of most programs.
In response to the request from this study forinformation on the capacity of women's sudiesprograms to help students develop marketable skills,we received a number of printed materials that wererelatively specific to the issue of women's studies'usefulness in the workplace.. In some Cases, these hadbeen very recently developed; in two instances, the
emphasis on careers was intensified from earliermaterials produced by the same programs.15 A fewrecently published brochures sent to this study didnot make reference to possible employment areas for
persons with training in women's studies,, however.And since our responses overall came from thoseprograms that responded to this study's emphasis oncareer issues, the fact that most',of the examples ofprogram literature received diicus'sed employment in
some way cannot be taken to represent the entire
field's involvement in promoting career-related skillsand awareness.
Nor, conversely, can the absence of su,h self-descriptive employment-related references be taken toi'zove the absence of activities related to employment
concerns and careers. Brochures and course schedulesisent to us indicated internship or practicum oppor-
tunities in many of the undergraduate orograms andapproxiMately one-third of the graduaLe programs.Program newsletters occasionally advertised specificjob openings, mostly for academic positions moresuited to faculty or doctoral level students than toundergraduates or M.A. graduates. Some positions were
publicized for feminist writer/researchers or clericalstaff for women's organizations.
61
Program literature, particularly newsletters,included many announcements of noncredit workshops fordeveloping job-seeking skills: resume writing,interviewing techniques, and career planning, oftensponsored or cosponsored by the women's studiesprograms. However one might measure a program'semphasis on acquisition of particular job skills orpromotion of specific careers through the curriculum,there is evident awareress that graduates will beseeking employment and a willintness to providesupport with that job search.
One national survey of women's studies programs,completed in 1977-78, found that 19 percent of theinstitutions with women's studies programs havespecial referral services, internships, and -resourcecenters for women, and that 4 percent have skillsworkshops in assertiveness, consciousness-raising,study techniques, and overcoming math anxiety (Wood,1978). The extent to which the individual institu-tions emphasize career-related aspects of theseservices and training programs is noic clear, andtheir existence on a campus with a women!s studiesprogram does not necessarily mean that women's studiesstudents systematically take advantage of them. At
best, the proportions of institutions offering suchfacilities is not high.
A preliminary survey of women's studies programsby NWSA in 1978 indicated that approximately one-quarter of all programs already offered some form ofinternship, practicuM; or field experience course.NWSA has subsequently been awarded a grant by the Fundfor the Improvement of Postsecondary Education for aproject to improve such service-learning in women'sstudies. The research and faculty development out-comes of that project may be expected to enhance andincrease _this aspect of career-related activity in
women's studies.
62
Emplomenquortunities for Women's Studies Graduates
Tables 1, 2, and 3 identify 99 undergraduate and51 M.A. women's studies graduates who were employed ona-full-time basis when surveyed. About one-third ofthe known graduates represented by this pilot samplehave been "tracked"; they graduated from approximatelyone-third of the existing degree programs. Assumingperfect sampling techniques and extrapolating to thenational population, there may be some 1,400 women'sstudies (program) graduates currently employed --altogether a very small number :1 the nation's totalwork force. What is the labor market for women'sstudies graduates? How many and which employers areseeking them?
Sources of Information
Job announcements appearing in the Women'sStudies Newsletter over the past 6 years describepositio-ns for feminists at all levels of education, intr&ditional and nontraditional s,,4ttings.16 Othersources of information on positions open to women's
studies alumnae are the files of requests fromagencies and organizations to women's studies programsasking for undergraduate or graduate student interns.Students are generally unpaid in such field place-ments, of course, but their volunteer assignmentsrepresent work for which (where funds are available)graduates may later be employed.
We examined such files in the internship programof the University of Maryland's Women's StudiesProgram and reviewed the list of practicum placementscompleted by graduates of the George WashingtonUniversity M.A. program. Women's organizations,family abuse and rape crisis shelters, feministpublications, lobbying projects, legal defense funds,and counseling centers are typical of those requestingundergraduate interns; the M.A. candidates have hadpracticums in similar settings and have also served as
research assistants in women's programs of Federalagencies, as women's studies teachers in high schools
63
and community colleges, a$ conference organizers, andas EEO workshop leaders (see appendix D).
Some information on interest in hiring women'sstudies graduates ws available to us in correspond-ence shared by Esther Stineman, then Universityof Wisconsin women's studies librarian-at-large,.between herself and a number of business co7cerns,government agencies, and women's caucuses of profes-sion4 organizations. Stineman had asked their viewof women's studies as a marketable background, andasked them to specify courses that might be beneficialfor women's studies students seeking and enteringprofessional positions (see appendix E). Responses toher request (spring 1978) fell into four categories,with five to eight responses in each. Some werepositive and informative, describing positions inwhich persons trained in women's studies would be anasset; generally, these positions involved women asclients, consumers, or subjects. Suggestions foruseful coursework included ."women's studies courses"(like "women and the law" or "psychology of sexdifference") and business, management, and publicadministration topics.
Other respondents were positive, interested in
Stineman's research, but unable to help. They demon-strated awareness of the women's studies network byreferring her to The Feminist Press or NWSA forinformation on graduates of women's studies programs.Still other responses were from persons not familiarwith women's studies, but willing to attempt to helpby forwarding Stineman's letter to someone "moreinformed" on women's concerns; some of this group gaveexamples_ of their firms' activities in assisting theadvancement of women in employment.
A fourth category consisted of less positive(and occasionally rude) responses. These suggestedthat persons trained in women's studies lack necessaryjob skills, or they simply expressed ignorance of ordisinterest in the issues Stineman was asking themto address. Such responses may not seem totally
64
unreasonable from the American Chemical or AmericanMathematical Society, but seemed surprising !rom theCouncil for Career Planning, Incorporated, and from
Women in Communications, Incorporated.0
One response, from a Federal women's programicoordinator, does not fit neatly into these cate-
gories. It read, in part:
...From my own experience as a librarian,
manager, career counselor and Women'sProgram Coordinator, I have some seriousdoubts on the pertinency of women's studiesto the job market. The same problem existsfor those with degrees in black studiesand liberal arts. Much of the governmenthiring is geared toward filling vacanciesrequiring specific skills rather than towardgeneralists.
In the past women have so frequently chosencourses of studies which are "interesting"such as history and English literaturewithout planning ahead as to the career theyplan to pursue. Those of us who reviewapplications see this problem daily. I
would not like to see women's studiesperpetuate this pattern.
However, I am trying to keep an open mindon women's studies and am willing to bepersuaded otherwise. It may be that oppor-tunities are increasing in women's ili.?ues.
Public sector positions, in particular, may stateinitial job qualifications in terms of specificdegrees and/or credentials, as well as skills andexpetience required, thus seeming to exclude women'sstudies graduates from the population sought. Anemployer like' this one might be "persuaded" by awomen's studies graduate with skills appropriate to avacancy, if the applicant were allowed and able toprelint herself effectively on paper and in person.
65
Growth in O. ortunities
Opportunities are inrreasing "in women's issues,"even if many such positions require skill in thefundraising, testifying, lobbing, and proposalswriting that will support their coptinuation. Women'sstudies graduates and programs need to be aware,however, that the degree in women's studies is
still neither widely known nor understood; it racksvisibility and a sharp image in the marketplace aswell as on the campus.
A recent opening, for example, for programmanager at a county women's commission center, did noi:call -- by name for a women's studies graduate.Special/ preferred oquarifications listed included:
an M.S. degree or better in a socialservice, social science, counseling,administrative or similar area; a wideknowledge of the problems and concerns ofwomen and their families; a comprehensiveknowledge of the legal system as it impactson women and families; the ability to
work evenings and weekends on a regularbasis as needed; practical experience inindividual short term counseling; practicalexperience in the running of short termgroups which focus on problem or interestareas; the ability to liaison effectivelywith representatives of numerous organiza-tions at all levels; the ability to workeffectively with individuals of all racial,social and economic backgrounds; demon-strated ability in the administration ofcomplex and varied programs; demonstratedability to supervise and direct employees;demonstrated oral and written effective-ness.
The paragon sought here is obviously not an inexper-ienced recent graduate in any of the fields mentioned.
866
That noted, women's studies could certainly be anappropriate "similar area" of academic training tooffer for such a position.
We received two lists of "Occupation..1 Opportuni-ties," originally appendixes toa women's studiesprogram proposal at California State University,Northridge (Berry, 1977); they have been reproduced
,onear as appendix F. The first list consists oftouncements that have appeared in The Chronicle
Education, in Women's Studies Newsletter,local publications in the San Francisco area.
The second is of jobs for which women's studies wouldbe ueful and appropriate background and is similarto other lists of "occupational suggestions" developedby Vai:i0MS women's studies programs. Togetherthey represent part of the range of woman-relatedemployment opportunities in education and the publicsector potentially_ available to women's studiesgraduates.
Career Planning_
Women's studies graduates are like others withstrong liberal arts backgrounds in needing a creativeapproach to career planning and development for alabor market in which the unemployment rate for newentrants is running nearly 15 percent (Monthly LaborReview, 1979).18 For those wt.:, will not receivedegrees or have professional credentials in directlyjob-related ways, and even for many who do have them,it will be necessary to develop the ability to findand creatc employment that has not been advertised orimagined, drawing upon their knowledge of what is (orneeds) being done and what they would be happiest andbest prepared co do.
ThiPlapproach to employment opportunities doesnot the need for skills and knowledge useful tothe potuatial employer; it is however, more assertivethan reflexive, more confident of the job seeker'sCapacity to shape events than reactive to labor market
67.
projections. "jive been searchin" was the title OffOur Backs gave to an article on job hunting in thisfashion (Leonard, 1978), which describes searching
not only for "a job," but for mentors, contacts,networks, and information.w
Stineman report ad to us on a "careers in women'sstudies" workshop at the University of Wisconsin inGreen Bay in 1979, which was part of a conference on"The Freedom to Chose: Creating Alternatives"sponsored by their women's studies program. Currently
enrolled women's studies students, who were takingresponsibility for shaping their various programs of
study around core concerns like women and aging or
pink-collar workers, felt that similarly shapingtheir own future work was important, possible, and
desirable. They were, in effect, practicing creativejob development before graduation. Green Bay is anissue-oriented, interdisciplinary university. These
particular students, thus, like others in that insti-
tution, are exposed to nontraditional thinking aboutthe connection of a field of study and subsequentemployment, but so are women's studies students in
general, who are participating in an interdisciplinary
program of study, dealing with topical problem issues,
and interacting with faculty and others whose work and
training are various and changing.
It is also possible that women's studies grad-
uates may be a population not like many others with
liberal arts degrees. TheL degree represents some-thing between "the generalist" and "the professional,"
just as women's studies represents something between
an issue/value focused field of study and an academic
discipline. Feminist theorists and scholars speak of
shaping a new intellectual paradigm (Kuhn, 197p).
There has not been enough history in women's studies
yet to say whether and how this paradigm might create
a new "profession," but the likelihood of women'sstudies having anything like guild or legal control
over particular activities seems remote (Gabriel,1975; Bergstrom and Olson, 1975). Former N.O.W.
68
Wilma Scott Heide's claim that feminism shouldb.A bank fide occupational qualification (B.F.O.Q.)for all '!Auman concerns is still far from widelyaccepted.
Few but zae most "movement" job descriptions willinclude feminist as a de'scriptor, and, as we haveseen, few will specifically and directly requestwomen's studies graduates. However, more and more maybe expected to welcue or call for persons experiencedin woMen's issues, or knowledgeable about women andemployment in such areas as health, law, and thelike. For these woman-related jobs, women's studiesdegrees will be a credential. In the final analysis,the gatekeepers (supervisors, personnel managers,funding agencies) must learn of the existence ofpersons with degrees in women's studies and of their.qualifications. Early women's studies graduates willbe representing themselves and their degree, definingand making visible what it means to be "trained inwomen's studies."
The Knowlege, Skills, ._'d Attitudes StudentsAc.uire from Women's Studies: Published Research
Another in this series of studies concentrates on"The Effectiveness of Women's Studies Teaching" andrelated evaluation issues. Here we focus primarilyon evaluation of the impact of women's studies onstudents as it is relevant to their activit''.A and
achievement in the work world.
A number of studies employing standard evaluationinstruments and comparison groups have been made ofwomen's studies courses on several types of campuses(Ruble at al., 1975; Speizer, 1975; Shueman andSedlacek, 1976; Scott et .l., 1977; and Canty, 1977).Each relied on at least one pre- and post-test,plus demographics; some wel.e based on standard psycho-logical scales and tests, while others used newlydevised instruments.
69
These evaluations indicate ,bat a one-semestercourse in women's studies can increase female and male
students' awareness of sex roles, sex stereotyping,
and discrimination. They showed that students whoenroll in women's studies courses tend to have less
traditional attitudes about women's roles than
students in classes serving as control groups. They
imply that persons who enroll in women's studiescourses (and degree programs) have a more feminist
orientation initially. While these evaluations didnot detect increased career aspirations after aonesemester course, some found more liberal family
attitudes and plans by women students to combine paidwork with childrearing more frequent.
Students enrolling in women's studies courses ata selective liberal arts college showed more liberalattitudes toward women than did women's studiesstudents on a regional state university campus with astudent population of lower socioeconomic status(Scott et al., 1977). One evaluation based on a study
of 429 students in nine different women's studiescourses at the University of Maryland showed thatstudents felt the courses to be rigorous (Shueman andSedlacek, 1976).
All of these evaluations attempted to demonstratethat courses in women's studies change students'selfconcepts and enhance their sense of independence,but none succeeded in proving that students had
altered attitudes about themselves during one semester
of women's studies. One of the studies, made at a
Catholic women's college, showed that members of a
onesemester psychological statistics class serving
as a control group experienced an increase in self
confidence during the semester, while members of a
women's studi,;6 class did not. The author explained
that the statistics students lacked confidence intheir ability to do well in that course, but gained
selfconfidence through successful completion of work
in a field often regarded as nontraditional forwomen.
70
Women's studies courses have inspired students towork harder, to.accept more challenging assigamenrs,and to set higher standards for achievement than haveother courses taught in the same university depart-ments. Many women's studies courses require oriAinalresearch, collective or individual work on specialprojects, and extensive journal and report writing.These courses usually encourage student participation,interaction, and cooperation, and some have beentaught collectively by students. The enthusiasm andenergy levels of both faculty and student participantsare unusually hi.h in women's studies, with muchemphasis on consciousness-raising, self-actualization,and political activism (Rosenfelt, 1974). For thesereasons, faculty and students have felt that women'sstudies does effect personal change -- increasingassertiveness, self-confidence, and independence.Changes in these traits are difficult to assess, andthe earliest evaluations failed to do so.
Project WELD Evaluation
The first evaluation to show conclusivelythat women's studies ,courses can alter attitudesof students about themselves was a formative evalua-tion of educational programs in coeducational univer-sities, in women's centers, and in women's colleges.Courses offered in environments sympathetic towomen's concerns and education were purposely selectedfor Project WELD (Women's Education: Learning andDoing) (Talburtt, 1977). Fifty faculty members,25 supervisors (of student interns), and 270 studentsfrom eight different campuses participated. Each metfor a 1-hour personal interview that included someopen-ended questions and a written assessment. Thestudents had completed the course or workshop approxi-mately 1 year prior to the interviews.
This research showed that internships (coursesthat require "career exposure in an out-of-classroomsetting') help students to gain career-related exper-ience, while also icreasing their "self-confidence,
71
openness and assertiveness"; and that classes inwomen's studies (not necessarily part of a formalwomen's studies program) provide the expected substan-tive information and also "foster self-confidenceand a greater sense of personal potential." Skills
classes in career plan "ing, interpersonal growth,
and assertiveness training improve students' communi-
cations skills and interpersonal 1:elations as antici-
pated; they also improve students' "self-confidence,
independence, and feminist perspective." This evalua-
tion demonsttted that students gained the skills
and information expected from these three types of
courses, and, in addition, ,?cperienced changes inself-concept and personal att:,tudes bn-ond what had
been anticipated,
Although Project WELD dealt with course ratherthan degree program evaluations, the implications for
women's studies are significant. Many women's studies
programs offer all three types of educational activity
as part of their degree curriculum. Based on the
Project WELD evaluation, graduates of women's studies
programs that provide or integrate field placement
experiences and skills workshops and classes, in
addition to the usual women's studies courses,
probably gain and possess personal qualities extremely
useful and desirable in the workplace.
If it ca -t be shown that women's studies courses.
affect students in surroundings less sympathetic than
those campuses visited in the WELD study, then the
case for women's studies as preparation for a career
becomes even stronger. All the schools and programsparticipating in the WELD evaluation are selective in
their admissions or frequented by uppar middle-clasa
women students; none are in the conF;erva;ivh western
or southern states. Their students, if POi: fe.linists,
are likely to be career-oriented, at th! lie of
enrollment. In fact, they are not unLiii.e those
students who enroll in women's studies deg-J:.ee programs
on a variety of campuses.
72
Decision-Theoretic Evaluations
The methodology for evaluation of women's studiescourses was the subject of an early conference atWesleyan University (Tobias et al., 1973). The"decision theoretic" approach presented there has beena popular and useful technique for evaluation ofwomen's studies. This method requires the jointefforts of students and teachers in determining thegoals of course or program under examination(Guttentag et al. 1978).
Brush and her associates (1978) -emRloyect the"decision theoretic" method in preparing ",question-naives for an evaluation of women's studies courses ona small, liberal arts, coed campus. They used pre-and post-testing with comparison groups, as well aspersonal iaterviews with students who had takencourses in women's studies 1 and 2 years earlier.This evaluation found that women's studies courses onthis campus helped women students to gain confidenceand independent attitudes and to gain respect fortheir own "masculine" or "feminine" qualities a-1interests; the courses did not increase androgynousbeliefs. The invostigatrs found that women's studiesclasses raise questions for students that may besolved only after some time, and noted the importanceof evaluators' oning aware of this time lag in tkedetectability of at!-itndinal changes. They found tK,students who had a feminist orientation initiallywere better able to express feelings about sexismand discrimination following the course in women'sstudies: the course he_ped this cohoi:t of wowrstudents to reinforce and maintain feminist att:tudes, while members of the comparison classesliterature and social science became less feministperspective during ':he year following the course.
Educational aspirations of all students (inwomen's stuc and control classes) were high on thiscampus, but the career aspirations of women's studiesstudents increased appreciably during the semester
7?
course. and their plans for graduate study becamefirmer than those of the comparison group, Women's
studies students did nor cblge marriage plans during
the course, Out many did lower the number of children
planned.
U. Mass./Boston Evaluation
In 1974, the University of Massachusetts /Bostonundertook 'evaluation research' directed towardstrengthening that university's women's studiesprogram. This project was,based on survey responsesfrom 40 students who were concentrating in wome,'sstudies (concentrators) and from 305 other students
who had taken from one to f ive courses (Mangione and
Wiersma, 1974).
One part of -he survey requiLed students to ratewomen's studies courses with respect to the level of
achievement of 17 goals that had been compiled by
evaluators, facu'ity, and students. The women's
studies concentrators reported greater impact from
individual courses than did other students. Both
groups reported a higher level of goal achievement
for each subsequent course tan, and an apparentsynergis:-ic effect, with each additional course (up to
five) producing a larger increment of impact.
The University of Massachusetts/Boston evaluation
found that concentrators and non - concentrators, males
and females, valued the cognitive learning aspects
of women' L studies more hlIghly than consciousness-raising and changing self-concepts. Students had as
primary goals learning of womes perspective :n the
course subjects and learning about women's rolewithin the,"social-economic class"; the concentrators
ranked changing personal attii'.udes third and thenon-concentnators, fourth, among thc 17 goals.
The concentrators, perhaps because more of them
had completed a larger number of courses, indictedreceiving greater impact on a17, 17 goals than did
74
other students. In rating the courses overall,concentrators rated them higher than other students,and women rated them higher than men.
Summary
In summary, courses in women's studies doincrease students' awareness of sex roles, stereo-typical behavior, and sex discrimination. Womenstudents do gain confidence, become more assertive,and ar.: better able to articulate feelings aboutdiscrimination as a result of the courses. Thesecharact!ristics and results may not be immediatelydetectable at the end of t% course, On some cam-puses, women's career aspirations have been increasedand attitudes about womet's roles in the family havebecome more liberal as a result of women's studiescourses.
Those evaluations that included open-endedquestions and personal interviews appeared to detectattitudinal changes more readily than those utilizingonly objective questionnaire and standardized testinginstruments and procedures. The importance of gather-ing this sort of pet.:ional and onsite data in women'sstudies is once again inforced. At one institution,students were observed 41 receive greater impact fromeach subsequent course complete4 in women's studies;these same students highly vatted t, substantiveinformation learned from the courses. It is not clearthat other students participating in evaluations onother campuses were asked to rate courses with respectto cognitive aspects.
Women's studies evaluations to date have tendedto be of course, rather than program/degree, impactand to strcss messuremenc. of attitudinal changesafted by women's .tidies couraes. Considering theemp;'asis placed on (plarship cad research in manyprograms, and the superior quality of publishedmaterls emanating from them, it is Surprising thatonly the University of Massachusett:Boston and the
75
Project WELD tudies identified cognitive learning asone important outcome of women's studies courses.Such learning would, of course, be of importance indescribing the usefulness of women's studies forcareer purposes.
The ultimate concern of this study is what grad-uates of women's studies have learned that is usefuland relevant to their work lives. Perhaps one of thestrongest expressions of this concern was presented byNancy Hoffman (1973) in her observations on the livesof alumnae 1 year after-graduation-from the.Portiand_State University certificate program:
To ask the question how has women'sstudies affected the work lives of students-- is to come at evaluation of women'sstudies from an oblique angle. l cannotsimply ask how well courses teach theirproposed subject matter. Most graduates do
not go on to teach courses in nineteenthcentury feminist movements or seminars in
Doris Lessing. Nor do significant numbersof women graduates go on to be full-timewomen's movement organizers. Thus to judge
a women's studies ogram by how wellstudents know Lessing or how articulate theyare about socialist thought seems less
fruitful than to examine the range offeminist values put to use after graduationas women continue their work lives.
I by no means want. to undervalue thecurriculum of women's studies -- its content
iis the first to make sense in my educationor career. We need to answer questionslike: what do women learn about authority
their own and others in a women'sstudies program? How do they handleauthority in the real world? What. do wcr-.1
learn about their own intellectual poi.
they become explicit and strong about
76
their own values? Particularly, we needto answer the question: do women litavewomen's studies programs having hap positiveexperience of collective work, and havingmade a commitment to continue to work withothers?
Huffman described the success of seven graduateswho had been working in groups with specified goals.One graduate had organized a rural women's writinggroup; another taught an experimental course aboutwomen and poetry; two were running graduate historyseminars; and one with a teaching certificate andemployed by a child care center, had become a "childadvocate," encouraging involvement of persons withoutchildren at the center. Hoffman remarked that youngerwomen's studies students, still on campus, hadraised their career aspirations, become more seriousstudents, and planned medical, law, and other pro-fessional careers rarely undertaken by PSU womenstudents a few years earlier.
Hoffman interprets the experiences of these womenat reflections of the curriculum in women's studies atPSU, a program in which students participate activelyin planning and teaching:
The implicit curriculum, as I read it, is anAmerican do-it-yourselfism, but not theusual individualistic, boredom-assugingversion. It is rather a version whichdepends on several firm beliefs: first,women students can best define and meettheir own needs....Second, from the pointof view of pedagogy, maximum participation,doing rather than hearing, or even reading,means maximum learning. And third, if lackof confidence and fear of engagementaccompanied by fear of judging or beingjudged are particular women's problems, thenwoman's studies must create and perpetuatesituations in which each woman student, with
77
the support of other. women, is encouraged totry out power, to be alternatively recipient
and provider of skills and knowledge, toparticipate in the definition of collectiveneeds and goals.
The Knowledge, Skills, and AttitudesStudents Acquire from Women's Studies:Graduates' Perceptions and Responses
This study received and reviewed several followup
surveys that contained women's studies graduates'perceptions and evaluations of their degree programand its releance to their postgraduate activities.
University_ Washington Survey
The University of Washington B.A. degree programsurveyed its graduates in 1976 as part of an overall
program evaluation. (Data on career activities of the18 respondents to that survey appear on p. 33). Whencompared with the general population, this particular
group of graduates demonstrates a fairly high degree
of traditional career success: 33 percent holdsupervisory/managerial positions, compared with8 percent of women college graduates nationwide (U.S.
Department of Labor, 1975), and f it overall employ-
ment is 78 percent, compared to ul percent of all
U.S. women college graduates (U.S. Departnt ofLabor, 1976). Three are listed as graduate students,and two others who are also employed attend graduate
school, raising to 28 percent the proportion seeking
advanced degrees (comparable to the national average).
The 22 percent of the total holding traditionalwomen's jobs is characteristic of the national popula-
tion.
In spite of their comparative early careersuccess, these graduates were critical of the pro-
gram's failure to develop career skills: seven of
eight recommendations for future change suggestedincreased emphasis on training in job skills.
94 78
Graduates were, hc,wever, overwhelmingly in favor ofthe degree, and 14 would choose a women's studiesmajor again, 11 with a "double major."
Two -birds of the Washington graduates indicatedthat through women's studies "they had gained aware-ness of jobs previously held by men, and developed anability to assess their own skills leading to improvedself-concept." Seventy-two percent indicated thatthey had "developed an awareness of the types of powerstructures within jobs"; five felt their women'sstudies degree had been helpful in finding a job, andthree that it may have :)een a drawback.
These graduates' criticism of the lack of skillstraining in their program may be a function of anumber of them being in positions to identify andobserve the value of additional career exposure in acampus setting. If they were less confident and hadno jobs or less challenging ones, this criticism mightnot have been as strong or made at all.
Research by Sylvia J. brown (1978) shows that
these graduates' observations were sound. She reportsthat alumnae of cooperative college programs are moresuccessful in finding jobs relevant to their majorfields and believe that their career preparation issuperior to that of women who did not gain job-relatedexperience during their college years. The Universityof Washington has recently introduced a field place-ment component in its program
Universit of California/Santa CruzScpvey
The University'of California at Santa Cruz veryrecently surveyed alumnae of its women's studiesbachelor's degree program, and they sent us studylists of unclassified responses without accompanyinganalysis (Lawson, 1979). The data indicate that7 have career jobs and 7 (all that applied) have been
accepted to graduate sfhool. Seven jobs listedrequire managerial skills- ("Coordinator of...," "Top
79
Administrator at...," fl,_:.xecutive Director...," etc
five work as teachers; three are legal assistant3;and one is a librarian. Several of the jobs listed
are nontraditional for firefighter, plumber,
sports official, Santa . A number of traditional
women's jobs are also listed (phone operator, secre-tary, attendant to disabled woman, etc.), but it is
unclear from these preliminar data how many personshold these jobs or if some peins have more than onejob.
Students in the Santa program participateextensively in coordinating, planning, and teaching.Responses of 21 graduates to a number of open-ended
questions on the survey have an enthusiastic tone:
all indicred that they would repeat women's tAudiesas a major if starting college now. A requestfor recommended changes in the program showed noconsensus: 22 suggestions were given. Two suggested
more assitance with job searching, and one withskills training; two would ha4,1 liked additionalscience-related material, and .! would have liked
more on statistics. Three requested courses in ThirdWorld women, end two felt the program needed morefunding.
All of the Santa Cruz graduates responded to twoquestions: "How was women's studies helpful?" and"Did women's studies help in social and personalactivities?" The responses, as summarized by theprogram administrators (tables 4 and 5) are bothpositive in gc;-,,tral and with application to employmeac
issues.
Universit' Oregon SurveL
l 1978, the University of Oregon Women's Studies
Program mailed a questionnaire to graduates of itscertificate program and received zesponses from 16,
the majority of whom had majored in sociology or
psychology/counseling (Lawson, 1978). Fifteen were
employed: 5 held traditional women's jobs in food
80
RESPONSES TO 'TOW
TABLE 4
N'S
leasmit4 organisation skills
provided an analysis andframework to see the world
- in understanding relationsbetween groups and the individual
got her a job at YWCA
- learning collective processthat has helped in politicalcampaigns
used in MA degree
- incentive for starting omen's
Voices
broadened perspective
helped in job
r's,vided a feel fo
of wGmentie history
co-coordinating the program wasmajor factor in getting job overbusiness' majors due to leadership
role
- provided good preprofessionaltraining in law
gave better perspectiveschool
- basic knowledge and perspective offeminism
organization and teaching
encouraged community participation
- brought different perspective into job
- made aware of exploitation on manylevels
- helped to feel par,- of the community
- created political goals
- gave support for lifestyle
- provided good theory background
- in job with children breaking downrnsditional roles
- helped writing skills
- helped to integrate politicaleveryday practice
- helpful with personal contacts
developed new skills of reading,writing, and analyzing
provided confidence to work141 non-
in traditional jobs
good liberal arts background; teachesreading, writing, analysis, discussion- helped develop concrete :men
against sexism
self-pride
Only one Jerson said women's studies was not helpful because it made hof sexism in the workplace, but she said it also helped her to
co-workers and make some changes (Lawson, 1979).
81
toek to
TABLE 5
RESPONSES TO "DID WOMEN'S STUDIES HELP IN SOCIAL AND PERSONAL ACTIVITIES?"
All but one =levered yes. Thrather than women's studies. Thewomen's studies helped.
= give good problem solving skills
- collective and political educe',tion
taught hoe to work withinbureaucracy
- helped in work with interrelatingwith staff and clients
- increased political awareness
gained friends
- gave focus and priority
gave great sense of communityinvolvement
- helped in work to be able toobject diplomatically andconstructively
- learned how to compromise
learned how to be aelf-re
taught how to think analyand with sensitivity
good theoretical basis forpersonal and politicalinteractions
tally
id no because of the MSc atmosphereg are shortened otatementa as to how
- greatly helped self -image
gained assert]. enema
improved self-image led to thedevelopment of good relationships
led to open emotional/sexualrelationshipa
- dispelled myths making seenjoyable
al- ty
supported lifestyle: helped herfeel not crazy
learned how to listen
learned how to speak up andcommunicate needs
learned how to accept and giveconstructive criticism
- helped to feel more comfortable..fith people
felt she was a better personhaving been a part of the program
The recurring themes of improved self - image, ability to epuak and listen, andincreased ease in personal relationships were the main emphasis of the answerson this question. I personally think this is a very important part of theprogram myself. I don't know what the administration will want to hear, butthe trarwhelming response is that women'a studies helped everyone in gainingskills that helped in Litt personal, Emilia. and po!ilical world. The skillsgaited or increased were practical as well as intellectual onea. Skills thathelp one to survive in the world. I have noted that some apoke specificallyabout the skills and how they helped at work (Lawson. 1979).
82
service and offices; 10 were in jobs with someprofessional status (statistical research, teaching,counseling, "sales and display/purchasing," etc.).
Only two of five who were in "woman-related" jobsfelt that the women's certificate helped them toacquire employment; 3 of the 15 who were employedthought the certificate might be a deterrent togaining employment and gave the following comments:
"The connotation of a 'women's libber' isnegative in career matters - you're outto steal a man's job"..."I never mentionedit to my boss. I tend to be less vocalabout feminism out of the academic environ-ment."...and "I don't feel that the Certifi-cate really matters in my present employ-ment" (in the juvenile center)... "however,when I was job hunting, I was often askedwhat the Certificate was and received manyfrowns and insults after I explained."
One graduate commented, ".Although.i.I cannot see howthe Certificate would deter me in any way, some peoplehave implied that Women's Studies is not a legitimateor serious area of study." Along these lines, anotherstated, "The Program needs to be a major."
All the responses of the University of OregonCertificate recipients to three open-ended questionson careers, jobs, and personal goals follow; theseillustrate exactly how alumnae feel about women'sstudies' effect on their personal and working lives.
o Do you think your knowledge of Women's Studieshas any effect on -your day-to-day job exper-iences?
It helps me always to better understand and todeal with the sexism to which we as women aresubject. I have gained a new sense of
83
assertiveness with the knowledge that malesdiscriminate most overtly if we are passiveand accept it.
It gives me a critical framework for askingquestions. And I've had opportunities tolearn and practice "group process" skillswhich I mostly learned in WS 101.
I work with teen-aged young women who have insome way broken the law and have been removedfrom their homes. These young women haveextremely sexist views of men and women. Theyneed to be shown that it's not like that.
It gives me a basis from which to speak,support of knowing my beliefs are in print,helped me put a lot of feelings into words,backed by shared experiences ar statistics.
Yes -- my sights are higher. I am not willingto be satisfied with standard "women's jobs."I also recognize better that deep prejueLes(even if unknowingly held) are against womenas a permanent viable part of the work force.I work with a majority of men women areonly in secretarial positions and I am in amanagement-trainee position. Fortunately, myimmediate supervisor is somewhat enlightened.
I am not as easily put down by men managers.I am more aware of the political game playingand more sympathetic to other women.
I relate to the world as a woman.
In some ways job frustrations are easedbecause I:understand sexist interactions.However, since my thought patterns have beenradicalized, job frustrations are greater onanother level because I can't accept a lot ofthings any more.
84
Perhaps not as much as just my personalwell-being, but certainly in that my con-sciousness is supported by the knowledge I nowhave and this cannot help but affect all thosearound me. Unfortunately, there are not manyopenings with the requirement of feminist.The Certificate is another college attainmentand I feel it adds strength to my generalsociological background.
Very much so. I've proven to myself andothers that I can take care of me. I've beentalking to women about my W.S. classes and howthey helped me. Almost everyone has a book ofmine, dealing with women.
It has made such a difference in how I relateand respond to people. It bothers me so muchto see how some women live or let their livesbe controlled. I feel it is so important forwomen to be happy with themselves and theirlives. I'm always working on getting betterwork benefits for the women at work.
My knowledge of Women's Studies has kept mesane. It has given me courage to challengeinjustices against women in working situa-tions. Also it has helped me understand theproblems of working women which I oftenencounter.
Definitely. I work mostly with women, and myprevious study of women has enabled me tounderstand more the situations different womenare in: working mothers, women with few jobskills, middle-aged returning to work, etc. I
am much more tolerant of the roles I see women"stuck" in as a result of their upbringing. I
see examples every day of women in the jobworld, as I learned in my classes: thesocio-economic role women fit into, the tokenwomen managers, the low pay scales andfor the most part, dead-end jobs.
I work in county government and find my back-ground in Women's Studies valuable in helpingme cope with the male and military orientedsystem. My knowledge of women's literatureallows me to influence the buying practicesof the librarians. I feel I have beenresponsible for enriching our collection withwomen's works.
Has your RersRective of the world and/orself changed as a result of the courses?
All of the courses that I took widened my viewof myself and the world. I learned to putwords to a lot of things I had felt for sometime.
My perspective of the world and myself hasgreatly changed and benefited from the variousWomen's Studies courses. Mainly, I 4o not seethe world in terms of men being superior ordominant and women being second class.Rather, I perceive men and women as beingequal and not natural born enemies. I seeother women in terms of cooperation andunity, rather than competitiveness....Ifeel more confident, assertive, happier,enlightened and stronger due to the knowledgeand experience I have acquired...I feel like Ican accomplish what I like and pursue thegoals which always seemed to be unattainableor unworthy of any serious effort. Generally,
I feel better about myself than I ever didbefore.
I look at things primarily from a woman'spoint of view. I am much more critical ofthings I read and hear. I am an elitist whenit comes to choosing people I want to share mytime with.
I have such a better image of myself and I amtoo willing to be assertive to attain what Iwant.
In a way, I feel like I'm beating the system.I'm not doing what society expects of awoman.
Not changed so much as verified and substantiated. It's difficult to hold onto aperspective which is not pervasive. Althoughtoday almost everyvhere there is somewhat of afeminist perspective, when my feministthoughts formed, I felt very much alone.
Gave support and clarity to previous y heldfeminist outlook.
I've become more radical in my feminism.
More knowledge of how alike so many of ourexperiences are: and our: needs and desires aswomen.
I have a much more feminist perspective on theworld. I am a stronger person. I feel my-feminist background will give me support inattaining my goals.
I more fully understand my history, potentialand the stumbling blocks I had to face.Somehow I thought the rest of the world mightget enlightened along with me no way.
much more aware of wesien'n problemsorities. I an getting into dome good
organizations with other women and enjoying it
a great deal.
I view the world from a more political orientation.
87
I would not be the person that I am were itnot for Women's Studies. I am more centered.I am for the first time in control of my life;I have strengths I never knew existed. I amcapable of existing alone, on my own, to feelgood enough about myself to enjoy my owncompany. I will never again live in anyone'sshadow -- spouse, employer, or child.
o Did ur career =oafs chap a as a resuthese classes?
Yes, most of my classes during my last twoyears were women oriented. It was reallyimportant then, but now I wish I'd exploredmore (math, computer science, etc.)
Yes. HIGHER.
Yes I was encouraged to study women's statusand contributions within my own academediscipline.
Previously I planned to teeel history, and Inow would very much like to teach women'shistory.
Yes, instead of- being a teacher Ive beenthinking about becoming a principal.
My career goals became solidified while I waspursuing my Certificate in Women.'s Studies.I decided to become r, fer;u;st therapisti, Lead of a rather dry psychologist. Also,realized the typical role of women as a
housewife and mother was not for me. Rather,I want to be a very competent, scholarly, andaccomplished career woman.
Yes, to have more of a focus on women.
887
o Other comments:
My career goals still aren't crystallized, soI can't tell.
I was interested (counseliug women) before I
began.
I don't know if it was directly because of the
classes, but I did go into a people-relatedfield.
I have always intended to go to law school.That hasn't changed.
Not really, although I can see how easy itwould be for such classes to do so. I wasalready relatively molded by the time I was
enrolled in WS.
My frame of thinking is so much more positive.
I feel I. am a very capable, bright person whocan attain whatever I seek in the future-- quite different from a person lacking in
self-confidence.
Not really, except that I generally becamemore interested in areas that affect and
Washington UniversizirSursE
The only graduate program that sent results of afollowup survey with detailed respelrses from students
was the George Washington Uni7ersity M.A. degree
program (Streicher, 1977). (Information from that
survey was referred to extensively in the section onmaster's degree graduates, and details of graduates'employment patterns will not be repeated here.) The
GWU program offers a practicum and research projectcourse sequence as an option to a master's thesis; 7
of 46 graduates surveyed indicated that they obtained
89
employment as a direct reoult of their practicum;three found employment through earlier jobs, and sixheld their present jobs when entering graduate school.In the "comment" section of the survey, several of theGWU alumnae specified benefits deriving from theirpracticum experience.
The GWU survey had few open-ended questions,but did invite comments oa some questions and at theclose of tl.Y questionnaire. Here are some that seemrelevant to this study:
WS give me confidence and put me intocontac= with the outside world, especiallyafter being a housewife. I might havrestructured my program, but this was notthe fault of WS but rather that I didn't ?= -low
where I was going. I have learned that theimportant thing is 'guts" - go out after what youwant.
The program led to my present job, and Ibenefited and grew from the degree in otherways. Some things in WS were disappokting,but same of the courses are relevant to mycurrent employment.
WS gave me the courage "to do my thing."Some courses, like Women and the Law, wereexcellent.
I would take WS again, even though I couldhave doae my present work without the WSdegree. I particularly benefited from mypracticum and research.
142 was right for me in terms of vocationalinterest and present job.
I would take WS again, but _ might haveadded business courses.
90
Definitely would take again. Would alsolike to do other ttangb. Maybe get an HD in
epidemiology.
I knew what I wanted to do, but needed morein-depth information about women and I gotit.
Given the same conditions, I would take WSagain, although the degree is not verymarketable. There's nothing wrong with thedegree; it's the world that's fouled up.People are not as important as profits.
I might better halm majored in Management orPublic Administration and taker. lots ofelectives in WS. WS helped me to get a job
through my practicum and research. I took
WS because I _wanted professional status(credentials) - I did not want to beconsidered iust afeminist radical.
WS gave me a break from the work environmentI was in so that I could effectively eval-uate my career goals. I took it at a
critical point in ny career.
get a better feeling of self and woman-hood. I was helped by meeting women I hadrespect for and were role models. ,
WS neutralized the experience of growing upin a "male-studies" world. It added zhe
feminine perspective.
WS gave an added dimension to my life. I
formerly had a lack of self and self-esteemwhich has improved. The camaraderie with
other women was very gratifying. WS gaveinsight into myself - as a perscn and as a
woman.
91
If I were looking for a job I would not takeWS but I didn't take it to get a job. WSgave me direction; women's history wasvaluable for the work I eventually wouldlike to do.
I feel I couldn't have prepared in any otherway for my present volunteer work, though Imight have taken Public Administration orPolitical Science if there were more womenoriented courses.
WS was helpful to me, but I feel thereshould be stronger base in statisticalmethodology, management skills, and maybecomputer technology in particular,subjects geared to the real world of work.
Comments from Wichita State University
Lastly, two pertinent comments on their education in women's studies from graduates of the WichitaState University program were enclosed in correspondence sent to this study (Wfilters, 1979):
The world has become exciting for women.Today we have more choices about and controlover our lives than ever before. But anoption unknown is no option at all. A majorin Women's Studies keeps me aware of myalternatives in career choices as well as inlifestyle.
I am presently a -postal supervisor and haveboth men and women working under me.Perhaps my Women's Studies is not directlyrelated to my job, but I feel the experiencehelps me. I serve on the Postmaster's EEOcommittee; I am involved in job counselingat work; the postal service is presentlyundergoing great changes for the better
concerning female employees. I never wanted
a Women's Studies job or expected my degreeto be -directly related, but rather I feel
it improves me as an individual and amanagement employee for the Post Office.
These women's studies g aduates' evaluations oftheir educational experience, many written years andmiles from their program, express deep cmd positivefeelings, almost reminiscent of religious testimony.These graduates do not separate the person and theworker, the uses of the degree for themselves and forthe job, however they may be participating in theworld.
Coda: What Future for Women's Studies Graduate
Program followup studies appear to indicate that
many women's studies students have characteristicsassociated with career achievement for women:intelligence, self-reliance, and a strong commitmentto career success. all, characteristics that women'sstudies programs and courses are able to nurture andsupport. Family/class background, another indicatorof career success for women (and men), cannot bechanged by educational environments, but its effect onthe individual might be affected by institutional andcurricular attention and sensitivity to issues ofrace, class, and ethnicity.
A recent study of 263 junior ond senior women at
an eastern women's college with a women's studiesprogram and many women's studies courses found thatstudents identified as feminist differed from those
less feminist in their greater commitment to uninter-rupted careers (Cummings, 1977); most students sur-veyed were planning for marriage, family, and careers,but the feminists were more emphatic about plans foregalitnrian marriages that would permit the option ofcontinued employment through childrearing years.
93
Research by Hennig and Jardim (1977) offers aprofile of "the managerial woman" that also shows somesimilarity to that of women's studies graduates.Their cohort of 25 top-level women managers had strongand early commitment.to career success and the abilityto achieve in competitive situations without feelingthat their sex was a limiting factor. All but one ofthem had chosen to attend coeducational institutions,environments permitting (or requiring) regular inter-action and competition with men. Graduates of women'sstudies programs may well be assumed to be accustomedto meeting and overcoming challenges through verbalcompetencies and political skill; the very act ofbeing a women's studies major is a political one inmost schools, likely to precipitate continuing chal-,lenges and discussions (on and off campus) thatrequire value clarification and self-definition.
Fifty-six percent of the Hennig-Jardim cohorthad undergraduate majors in business, economics, ormathematics. Graduates in women's studies who indi-cated that additional training in business or publicadministration would have been beneficial to them maybe demonstrating a similarity to this group and aninterest in becoming "feminist managerial women"; datafrom this study do show, however, women's studiesgraduates tending to choose related fields of studyfrom those traditionally female (social sciences,humanities, education, counseling), where at mostone-quarter of the Hennig-Jardim sample had majored inhistory or other liberal arts.
Persons who succeed in natural sciences andengineering careers demonstrate competence inmathematics, persistence in work and research,independence, and somewhat more interest in "things"than in "people," a complex of traits not necessarilycharacteristic of women's studies graduates (Tidball,1974; Olson, 1977). Science and engineering have beendominated by men, and only the most career-committedwomen have managed to penetrate their barriers: tightnetworks of male mentors and the presumed importance
94
of early career success and an ability or willingnessto work long and irregular hours. The incveasedpresence of women could conceivably alter scientlicoccupational structures and "humanize" these fields,but women generally -- and, one presumes, women'sstudies graduates -- have restricted their option tobecome part of such a presence by failing to take thenecessary prerequisites in mathematics during high
school and early college years.
Moreover, wide application of computer technologythroughout corporate management now seems to extend
the need for at least some mathematical preparation totraining for careers in administration, business, andfinance. (The Hennig/Jardimcohort was educatedbefore the advent of computers, and mathematicaltraining may have been less a factor for that group.)With the possible exception of law, success in mostprofessions traditionally leading to policymakinghas been related to some degree of achievement and
competence in mathematics (Fox et al., 1977). The
commitment to careers and egalitarian relationshipsexhibited by feminist graduates is not itself suf-
ficient for gaining entrance to centers of corporateand political power. Fortunately, tracking women away
from mathematics and science training is coming to be
seen as a national_ problem, and some remedial efforts
are in progress (National Institute of Education,1977; see also 8.568, "Women in Science and TechnologyEducational Opportunity Act," 1979).
Graduates of women's studies programs wouldappear to have characteristics and preparationimportant for many kinds and aspects of employ-ment, including respect for the uses of collective/collaborative processes, experience in working with
igroups, and experience in dealing with and creatingorganizational structures. Education in women'shistory and on the current legal status of womenreinforces the confidence and self-reliance of women's
studies graduates. Role models provided by facultyand peers encourage. goalsetting and increase career
95
commitment. Women's studies graduates, knowledgeableabout the causes and effects of sex discriminationand determined to gain equitable treatment foc them-selves and others, seem particularly well equipped toovercome barriers of sex discrimination in graduatestudy or in the workplace.
Brush et al. (1978) report 13 of 30 formerwomen's studies students describing incidents inwhich they refused to conform to traditional femalebehavior, e.g., turning down a job "that I know hadbeen offered because of (my) looks..." These formerstudents would "not let (male chauvinist) remarkspass; rather they would insist .on the issue being-discussed and their views heard." The responses ofthe University of Oregon graduates cited abovesimilarly- reflect both career commitment and deter-mination to resist discrimination. Women's studiesstudents apparently have been trained to neutralizesex-role conflict on the job.20
Asking what sorts of careers women's studiesgraduates are committed to, and how their (individualand collective) success will be measured, recalls thequestions originally posed by this study and suggestsothers far beyond its present scope.
In Women and the Power to Chant (1973), FlorenceHowe concluded, "...women should focus on buildingtheir potential for strong and effective leadership inthose areas where they are currently numericallydominant -- education, social work, nursing, forexample -- rather than diluting their possible powerbase by urging that those most energetic and talentedserve as additional tokens in nontraditional fieldsof study."
Whether as part of a conscious strategy or forother reasons, many women's studies graduates are, itseems, now seeking and finding employment in thisdirection. They include those working in the "new"women's jobs and those employed in traditional
96
female occupations: human services work that usuallyinvolves direct contact with people, usually women and
children.
Other graduates are seeking out what have beennontraditional.fields of study and employment forwomen, whether urged, or otherwise impelled, to do
so. No responses to this study indicate women'sstudies graduates to have entered the male realms ofnatural sciences and, engineering or the military, but
some numbers have-chosen to work in law, law enforce-
ment, aspects of athletics and health care, construc-tion, business, management, and administration 21
Nontraditional work for women may also be saidto be involved with human services, depending on whatis being legislated, constructed, or managed; incomparison to traditionally female fields, howzver, it
is: (1) less likely to involve immediate humaninteraction; (2) more likely to require year-round
out-of-doors activity and/or physical- strength and
stamina; or (3) more likely to lead to potentialpublic power and social influence. The presence oftoken women does not yet alter the fact that, at the
highest ranks in virtually all fields and certainly in
these last, there have been only men, a male power
structure, and male definitions of competency,achievement, power, and success. Whether and howwomen's studies graduates, with other women, will beable to attain -- or transform -- careers and career
success remains to be seen.
97 f.
COMMENDATIONS
Educators and researchers concerned with "women's
studies graduates" as a distinguishable researchtopic, and with the issues raised in this study, needto be able to place their concerns within a context of
related problem areas. The recommendatiOns thatfollow should, therefore, be considered in conjunctionwith those included in the other monographs in thisseries.
Women's studies, as noted in the preface, is "afield in the process of development, a complex inter-disciplinary area of scholarship and curriculum thatis also a strategy for educational change." Assess-
ment of .data-gathering needs and the recommendations
for further research and policy development-forwomen's studies presented in this monograph and itscompanion volumes make it evident that those needs
are great, that research strategies must be closely
related to ongoing practice, and that adequateresources will be required to undertake and coordinate
significant activities. The results of these effortspromise expanded understanding of the educationalprocess generally, and, specifically, of its impact on
women.
The-summary preceding the body of this monographoutlines the basic shape of research needs in the areaof women's-studies graduates.,. The body of the mono-
graph amplifies and confirms those needs, summarized
here in the form of brief, key recommendations,iessentially n the order in which issues have been
discussed.
Encourage Research LiteratUreOn Women's Studies Graduates
Women's studies has, simultaneously, created a
body of research, curriculum models, courses of study,
and programmatic strategies. Unlike educationalpractitioners whose work is structured "from the
99
top," deriving, for example, from the findings of agerminal figure in the field or from the reports of a"blue ribbon" conference or commission, women'sstudies scholars, students, teachers, theoreticians,and program developers most frequently began whereverthey were to do the work they saw as necessary. Theyreported to or.eanother in whatever settings and/ormedia could be developed or used for their purposes:meetings and publications of professional associationwomen's caucuses; general feminist media; regional,area, or campus conferences and resource publications;and the like.
Long after others, not involved, were stillsuggesting there was not sufficient material or theoryavailable for a women's studies course in a particularsubject area (or that there were no standards bywhich feminist scholarship could be judged, and/or noexperts to consult, and/or no funds available...), thework was well, under way.
Similarly, although empirical research literatureabout women's studies and on women's studies graduatesis still developing and has yet to become sufficientlyvisible in established settings and publications, theprocess of such research is certainly under way. Weassume that more local studies exist already than arereported in our pilot survey, and that data for othersare being gathered and shared, if only informally.They await, often, only "translation" into thoseproducts known as publications.
It is a vital concern of this study to call forthe sorts of research and ensuing publication tradi-tionally sponsored, by agencies like the NationalInstitute of Education. We would note as well andmore generally th-P; continuing need for women's studiesfaculty and administrators, and women's Studies.graduates themselves, to be able to share theirexperiences and impressions, reflections, and over-views: in workshops and working papers, short reportsas well as longer articles; to feminist/educational
100
audiences and those that believe themselves interested
only in "women's" or in "educational" issues; andwithin regional and national networks of women'sstudies programs and researchers.
Such encouragement to publish and present there-
fore must be enhanced and accompanied by a call to
postsecondary institutions and external fundingsources for support (whether in the form of conference
travel funds, released time, or clerical/technical
assistance/printing subsidy), and to editors ofvarious publications and presses for sensitive and
imaginative perspectives on materials solicited or
accepted.
Gather Data on Women's StudiesGraduates, Degrees,
The identification of women's studies graduates,
degrees, and programs, and the development of con-
sistenL and available national data to support
further resech and study in these related areas,will require efforts involving Federal agencies,
educational institutions, and the academic research
community.
First, it is recommended that The National Center
for Education Statistics move to include "Women's
Studies" in its taxonomy of degrees granted and take
steps to encourage consistent reporting of women's
studies concentrations under appropriate existing
degree classifications. Such actions alone would not
identify or make available to researchers necessaryand related data on students whose credential inwomen's studies takes the form of a.minor or certifi-
cate or on those graduates not previously counted, but
they would subst...ntially advance work in this area in
the future.
This rt7.ommendation reaffirms a similar recom-
mendation made in Seven Years Later, one that also
called for "women's studies" to be added to the
101
data-gathering and reporting categories of otherFederal offices that deal with education, research,and scholarship. Publications like Sex Equity_inEducation: NIE7SponsosILTIojsts and Publications(Klein, 1980) need to be compiled and published morethan occasionally by agencies whose work on women'sconcerns is not visible in their mandate, both to makeavailable to the field information about researchstill in progress or unpublished and to heightenconsciousness within the agency about its own effortsin this area.
Second, it is recommended that colleges anduniversities assign authority, responsibility, andnecessary resources for coordinated identification andinternal and external reporting of women's studiesdegrees and degree recipients, including minors andcertificates in women's studies.
Women's studies programs snould be the coordi-nating agency on their campuses for information ondepartmental specializations and concentrations and onindividualized and speciali4ed degrees in women'sstudies. They should serve as consultants to institu-tional offices responsible for reporting to NCES,and should be called upon to advise those offices.responsible for preparing institutional publications(catalogues, handbooks, etc.) and promoting materials(including descriptive materials submitted to thevarious national guides to postsecondary education).It is assumed that programs will continue to report"to the field" via- informational surveys of theNational Women's Studies Association.
On campuses witb,-;ut formally established women'sstud.es programs, these functions should be assignedto an appropriate academic officer, who should beexpected to know and to consult with faculty orstudent women's groups, the campus women's center,and/or other persons or groups "unofficially" advisingstudents or coordinating women's studies activities.
102
On all campuses, efforts should be made toidentify and maintain data on students taking one or
more courses in women's studies who do not obtain a
credential. At the 'undergraduate level, such data-
gathering may simply involve tabulations from class
rosters. At the graduate level, data gathering would
necessarily be more complex, involving identification
of: students designing research projects in women's
studies; patterns of advising and supervision avail-
able to students, within their fields of study or
outside of them, to pursue feminist research projects
or training; patterns of self-designed reading
courses; and committee decisions required, as for a
special examination area. As noted previously,further work is needed to establish the issuesparticular to post-B.A. work in women's studies, and
the strategies most appropriate for collaborative
data-gathering between university graduate schools
and departments and the various disciplinary and
professional associations.
Third, it is recommehded that educational
researchers and organizations that track and query
graduates add "Women's Studies" to the lists ofdegrees, fields of study, or research included in
their survey instruments. Similarly, studies of
employment status (male and female) and careerachievement in the various professions and disciplines
should include "Women's Studies" among their cate-
gories of professional preparation, interest, and/or
activity.
This recommendation might well be extended to:
indexing, abstracting, literature search, and bibli-
ography projects and services that should include
"Women's Studies" among their topical descriptors;
professional associations, particularly those repre-
senting fields frequently involving women's studies
students and .graduates, that should include women's
studies program and degree information in their own
publications, listings, and directories; institutional
associations -- of the various subcategories of
103
junior/community colleges, liberal arts colleges,women's colleges, land-grant colleges -- that shouldinclude women's studies information in their materialsand meetings.
Obviously, responsibility for implementing suchrecommendations becomes diffused, often falling towome's caucuses and committees in the various organi-zations and to other parties interested or active bothin women's studies ani the institution or group inquestion. NWSA might well be expected to continue itsongoing advocacy role for women's studies and to seekadditional support to assist in such efforts.
Short of Government mandate, however, and same-times not even then, there may be no single strategyfor speeding the process by which a new question'simportance is established, and the absence of ananswer becomes apparent and thus significant. As with"women," so with "women's studies." There has been,one might suggest, some progress in the last decade,and more may be expected as the synergistic dynamiccontinues between data gathering/requesting andpublicizing/reporting of data already available.
Profile and Track yen's Studies Graduates
The question with which this study began, "Whatdo women's studies graduates do ?" suggests a priorquestion: "Who are wooen's studies graduates?"And it would seem that there is much one would,want to knca about the basic profile of this popula-tion and about women's studies students who do notobtain credentials: sex; age; educational statusand history; employment history; volunteer, extracur-ricular, and political activities and experience;race; sexual preference; marttal/paxental status andhistory; income and/or means of support; birth rank;numbr'r of siblings and their sex; parents' occupation;educational and ethnic/religious background...ingeneral, within the pertinent legal constraints andresearch protocols related to such data-gathering,
104
data to establish a picture of this population foruse in subsequent longitudinal, projective, andcomparative studies.
It is therefbre recommended that all students
ienrolling in women's studies courses; and mostparticularly, those who become candidates for degreesand credentials in women's studies, be systematicallysurveyed to obtain standard demographic deta andinformation of particular relevance to a profile ofwomen's studies students. The ideal survey instrumentwould be standardized and computer-compatible, briefand sufficiently empirical to allow-and encouragewide, easy use and reliable, cumulative tabulations.Its design would-be Such as to permit exit update atme of grahlation and correlation with campus insti-
tutional data and related profiles of women's studies
programs, degrees, and areas of concentration. It
would also be suitable for self-administration bystudents or past graduates who are identified atconferences, for example, or by mailings or advertise-
ments.
In addition to the foliowup surveys reported in
this monograph and those currently under way, there isstill a need for more widespread and continuing datacollection on the postgraduate activities of women'sstudies graduates, sufficient at least for the estab-
lishment of statistically significant cohorts, with
various credentials from various types of institu-
tions, to establish a data base for further study.
It is therefore recommended that women's studiesprograms offering degrees, and institutions providingcertification in women's studies, develop mechanismsto survey recent graduates (i.e., 1 year after thegranting of degree) to obtain updated personalinformation, data on educational, employment, andother activities, and evaluation(s) of the uses andusefulness of the degree and degree program.
Component questions for such a survey, andquestions about those questions, are discussed in
105
sections 1 and 2 of this monograph. Here it shouldbe noted that, while the apparent agents of implementation for recommendations offered on profiledatagathering and followup datagathering appear
_ _
to be the same, and the same as those Called on toidentify degrees and degree candidates, realistic andstrategic considerations would suggest potentiallydifferent practical developments.
It should not be difficult for a working grouprepresenting NWSA's Ad Hoc Committee on Researchand the Netwoe. of Women's. Studies Program Administrators to develop and confirm consensus on a profilequestionnaire/survey instrument. Once established, itwould also be a relatively smallscale project tobegin making that instrument available for distribution and to establish a center for recording datacollected.
Both development of a followup instrument, and ofmechanisms by which it would be distributed to agraduate population, pose more difficult problems.Despite the selfevident worthiness of keeping intouch with students after graduation, building analumnae network, and pursuing followup studies, it
eeems reasonable to assume that many programs may nothave such capacity without massive aid from outside.The basic concerns of a followup/tracking survey arealso evident replicating traditional queries andprocedures with additional questions relevant towomen's studies, but developing, refining, andstandardizing such a survey instrument and techniquefor women's studies, will still require a significantcommitment of resources and time.
Work would probably best begin as a followup toexisting followups (i.e., a project designed. to repeatstudies undertaken or directed to programs withsignificant numbers of graduates, seeking virtually100 percent response rates and using interviews aswell as written questionnaires). Such a project wouldalso be concerned with developing or using data from
106
and about the proljrams themselves, toward assessmentof curricular and. programmatic factors impacting on
graduates' activities, achievements, and attitudes,
and at least with exploring the possibility of inter-
views or questionnaires. addressed to the graduates'employers, graduate supervisors, or others in a
position to comment, from another perspective, ontheir -competencies, capabilities, and "success."
Reports to the field from such a project, overthe course of its first cycles of activity, wouldserve to encourage other programs not included in this
sample to begin or look toward beginning similar
efforts.
Develop/Distribute Information on--Career and Emilo gent Issues in Women's Studies
This study suggests that more is actually known
about "what women's studies graduates do" than has
been made known to audiences of students, parents,administrators, and employers, and that more is being
learned about the curricular and programmatic impact
of women's studies programs on their students' career
development. Information and materials gathered forand/or cit,A in this paper would lend themselves toadaptation into a more popular format. This is true
also for .information and materials gathered or pre-pared as part of NWSA's Project to Improve Service
Learning in Women's Studies, a research /faculty
development project to investigate current practice
acid needs in women's studies internships, practice,
and campus-based- activities supporting experiential
learning at a4orksite.
,Even pending further research and major data-
gathering, it is recommended that Federal agencies and
foundations dealing with employment and education
issues be encouraged to support development anddistribution of materials about career and employment
107
issues far women's studies students to women'sstudies programs, educational institutions, and otherappropriate audiences.
108
APPENDIX A
DATA PROVIDED BY THE NATIONAL CENTERFOR EDUCATION STATISTICS ON EARNED DEGREESCON_ERRED IN_WOXELESTUDIES, 1975 TO 197.2
1975-76 Earned Degrees Conferred in Women's Studies(from Higher Education General Information Survey XI)
0399 - Area Studies (other)
Women's StudiesUnion Experimenting College &University, Ohio 1 Bachelor's
1599 - Letters (other)
Women in Contemporary American/British Literature
St. Olaf College, Minnesota 1 Bachelor's
Women/LiteratureSt. Olaf College, Minnesota 1 Bachelor's
2299 - Social Sciences (other)
Social Studies (Feminist Studies)Goddard Colley, Vermont 18 Master's
yomen's_.HistorySarah Lawrence College,New York 4 Master's
Women's StudiesAntioch College, Ohiotoucher College, MarylandUniversity of Minnesota,
Twin CitiesSt. Olaf's College, Minnesota
109
1 Bachelor's1 Bachelor's
1 Bachelor1 Bachelor's4
4999 Interdisciplinary
Women's StudiesGeorge Washington Univer-
sity, D.C.
Macalester College, MinnesotaCity College, CUNY, Neu YorkRichmond College, CUNY,
New YorkNorth Carolina Wesleyan,North Carolina
Wichita State University,Kansas
5599 - Public-Service-RelatedTechnologies
Women's StudiesSaddleback Community College,
California
7 Master's
1 Bachelor's1 Bachelor's
6 Bachelor's
1 Bachelor's
1 Bachelor's10
1 Associate
TOTALS: 17 Bachelor's, 29 Master's, 1 Associate
1976-77 Earned Degrees Conferred in Women's Studies(from Higher Education General information Survey XIO
0399 - Area Studies (other)
Women's StudiesWashington University, Missouri 4 Bachelor
1599 - Letters (other)
Women/LiteratureKirkland College, New York 1 Bachelor
110
2299 - Social Sciences (other)
Feminist StudiesImmaculate heart College,California
299 - Social Sciences (other) (Clantinued)
1 Bachelor's
Women's HistorySarah Lawrence College, New York 12 Master's
Women's StudiesAntiach College, OhioHenderson State UniversiArkansas
University of Michigan,Anh Arbor
University of Minnesota,Minneapolis
New England College,New Hampshire
4999. - Interdisciplinary
Women's Studie
Y,
University of Alabama,University
State University of New YorkGraduate School
Queen's College, North CarolinaSan Francisco State University,
CaliforniaScripps College, CaliforniaStaten Island College,
(St. George) New York'
111
2 Bachelo
1 Bachelor's
2 Bachelor's
4 Bachelor's
2 Bachelor''
1
1 Bachelor's
2 Bachelor's1 Bachelor's
3 Bachelor's1 Bachelor's
3 Bachelor's11
5599 - Public-Service-Related Technologied
Women's StudiesSaddleback Commudity College,
California 1 Associate
TOT_ S: 28 Bache or s, 12 Master's, 1 Associate
112
APPENDIX B
INSTITUTIONS THAT OFFER MINORS, CERTIFICATES,AND DEGREES IN WOMEN'S STUDIES
This appendix derives from "Women's StudiesPrograms" (197p, from information provided to the
National Women's Studies Association, and fromresponses to this study.
Several institutions that do not confer creden-tials or degrees in women's studies provided someinformation to this project; they include:
Bryn Mawr C, Bryn Mawr, PAColumbus C, Columbus, GAMetropolitan Community College, Minneapolis,
MNPennsylvania SU, Capitol Campus, Middletown, PAQueens College, Charlotte, NCPresbyterian School of Christian Education,
Richmond, VASeattle Community College, Seattle, WATexas, U of, Arlington
Other respondents are indicated by (*) in liststhat follow.
Institutiors That Offer aBachelor's pe_gree in Women's Studies**
Alabama, U of, UniversityBarnard C, New York, NYBowling Green SU, -Bowling Green, ONBrooklyn C, CUNY, Brooklyn, NYCalifornia SC, Sonoma
*Respondents to this study.*May be granted as a B.A. through the women-s studiesprogram, but is frequently granted through a specialuniversity option (e.g., as an individualized degreeor contract major).
113
*California SU, Lang BeachCalifornia, U of, Berkeley
*California, U of, Los Angeles*California, U of, Kresge C, Santa CruzCase Western Reserve U, Cleveland, OHCity C, The, CUNT, New York, NY
*Colorado, U of, Boulder*Cornell U, Ithaca, NYDenison U, Granville, OHDouglass C, Rutgers U, New BrunswickFlorida Atlantic U, Boca Raton
*Georgia, U of, AthensGoddard C, Plainfield, VT.3overnors'State U, Park Forest South, IL
U of, Manoa, Honolulu*Henderson SU, Arkadelphia, ARHobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY
Humboldt SU, Arcata, CAHunter C, CUNY, New York, NYIllinois SU, Normal
*Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U ofIllinois at Chicago Circle, U ofIowa, U of Iowa City
*Jersey City SC, Jersey City, NJ*KaWsas SU, Lawrence*Kentucky, U of, Lexington, KY*Livingston C, Rutgers C, New Brunswick, NJ*Maryland, U of, College Park*Massachusetts, U of, AmherstMichigan, U of, Ann ArborMills C, Oakland, CA*Minnesota, U of, MinneapolisMundelein C, Chicago, ILNebraska, U of, LincolnNew England C, Henniker, NHNew Rochelle, C of, New Rochelle, NY
*New York, SU of, Albany*New York, SU of, Binghamton*New York, SU of, BuffaloNew York, SU of, Stony Brook
New York, SUC, BrockportNew York, SUC, Fredonia
*New York, SUC, New PaltzNew York SUC, Old WestburyNew York, SUC, OswegoNew York, SUC, PlattsburghNorth Carolina, U of, Chapel Hill
*Northeastern Illinois U, Chicago, IL*Northern Colorado, U of, GreeleyNorthwestern U, Evanston, ILOberlin C; Oberlin, OHOklahoma, U of, NormanPennsylvania, U of, Philadelphia
*Pittsburgh, U of, Pittsburgh, PA.*Pitzer C, Claremont, CA*Portland SU, Portland, ORQuinnipiac C, Hamden, CT
*Rhode Island C, ProvidenceSt. Catherine, C of, St. Paul, MNSan Francisco SU, San Francisco, CA
*Sangamon SU, Springfield, ILSkidmore C, Saratoga Springs, NYSouth Carolina, U of, Columbia
*South Florida, U of, Tampa*Southern California, U of, Los AngelesStaten Island, C of, CUNYStephen C, Columbia, MOTemple U, Philadelphia, PA
*Towson SU, Towson, MD*Utah, U of, Salt Lake City*Washington, U of, SeattleWebster C, St. Louis, MO
*Wichita SU, Wichita, KS*Wisconsin, U of, MadisonWisconsin, U of, Whitewater
Institutions That Offer an Undergraduate-1Minor ior Certificate in Jomen s Studies
Min- Alabama, U of, UniversityCer- Arizona SU, Tempe
115
*Min- Arizona, U of, TucsonMin- Avila C, Kansas City, MOMin- California SC, BakersfieldCer- California SC, San Bernardino
*Min- California SU, ChicoMin- California SU, FresnoMin- California SU, Hayward*Min- California SU, Long BeachMin- California SU, Los AngelesMin- California SU, NorthridgeMin- California SU, SacramentoMin- Central Michigan U, Mt. Pleasant
*Cer- Cincinnati, U of, Cincinnati- OHCer- Cclorado SU, Fort Collins
*Cer- Colorado, U of, BoulderMin- Colorado Women's C, Denver
*Cer- Dartmouth C, Hanover, NHMin- Delaware, U of, NewarkCer- Douglass C, Rutgers U, New Brunswick, NJ
*Min- Eastern Michigan U, YpsilantiMin- Eastern Washington SC, Cheney*Min- Florida SU, TalahaseeMin- Florida, V of, Gainesville*Cer- Georgia, U of, AthensMin- Hofstra U, Hempstead, NYMin- Humboldt SU, Arlata, CAMin- Hunter C, CUNY, NYMin- Illinois SU, Normal.Min- Illinois at Chicago Circle, U of
*Cer- Indiana U, BloomingtonMin- Lake Forest C, Lake Forest, IL*Min- Livingston C, Rutgers C, New Brunswick, NJMin- Long Islana U, CW Post Ctr., NYMin- Loretto Heights C, Denver, COMin- Lowell, U of, Lowell, MAMin- Mankato SU, Mankato, MN*Car- Maryland, U of, College ParkCer- Maryland, U of, European Division, APO, NY
*Cer- Massachusetts, U of, AmherstMin- Massachusetts, U of, Boston
116
Cer- Miami U, Oxford, OH*Min- Michigan SU, East LansingMin- Montclair SC, Upper Montclair, NJMin- Moorhead SU, Moorhead, MNMin= Nebraska, U of, Lincoln
*Min- Nevada, U of, RenoMin- New Hampshire, U of, Durham
*Min- New Mexico, U of, AlbuquerqueMin- New Rochelle, C of, New Rochelle, NY
*Min- New York, SU of Albany*Cer- New York, SU of, BinghamtonMin- New York, SU of, Stony BrookMin- Hew York, SUC, BuffaloMin- New York, SUC, OneontaMin- New York, SUC, Brockport*Min- New York, SUC, New PaltzMin- North Carolina, U of, Greensboro*Min Northern Colorado, U of, GreeleyMin- Northern Iowa, U of, Cedar FallsMin- Northern Kentucky, U, Highland _eights
*Cer- Oregon SU, Corvallis*Cer- Oregon, U of, Eugene*Cer- Pittsburgh, U of, Pittsburgh, PA*Cer Portland SU, Portland, ORMin- Puget Sound, U of, TaComa, WA*Min- Ramapo C, Mahwah, NJ*Min- Rhode Island C, ProvidenceMin- Rutgers V 'Jlark, NJMin- St. Cloud St. Cloud, MNMin- St. Olaf C, Northfield, MN
*Min- San Diego SU, San Diego, CA*Min= San Jose SU, San Jose, CAMin- Skidmore C, Saratoga Springs, NYMin- Timmons C, Boston, MAMin- Southern Illinois U, EdwardsvilleMin- Southern Methodist U, Dallas, TXMin- Stockton SC, Pomona, NJMin- Tennessee, U of, Knoxville
*Min- Towson SU, Towson, MDMin- Trenton SC, Trenton, NJ
117
MinMinMinMinMinMinMinCerMinMinMin
Utah SU, LoganWashington SU, PullmanWebster C, St. Louis, MOWest Chester SC, West Chester, PAWestern Michigan U, KalamazooWestern Washington SC, BellinghamWilson C, Chambersburg, PAWisconsin, U of, OshkoshWisconsin, U of, PlattevilleWisconsin, U of, Stevens PointWisconsin, U of, SuperiorWisconsin, U of, Whitewater
Institutions That Grant a Master's DegreeOr Graduate Minor in Women's Studies
MA Alabama, U of, University. Through American
studies.
Graduate Minor Arizona, U of, Tucson.women's studies in literature.
*MA California SU, Chico.graduate division.
*MA California SU, Long Be
major.
Individualized through
ach. Through a special
(a }MA Case Western Reserve U, Cleveland, OH.
Through American studies.
MA Colorado, U of, Denver. Individualized major.
*:graduate Minor Cornell U, Ithaca, NY. With an
interdisciplinary graduate major in another
field.
*MA Eastern Michigan U, Ypsilanti. Throughindividualized studies program.
1
-118
MA The George Washington U, Washington, D.C.Through special studies in Graduate School ofArts and Sciences.
MA Goddard College. Plainfield, VT. Throughnon-resident graduate program.
MA Goddard-Cambridge Graduate Program in SocialChange, Cambridge, MA. Feminist studiesthrough a collective study or individualizedapproach.
*Graduate Minor MA Governors State U, Park ForestSouth, IL. Interdisciplinary program inCollege of Cultural Studies.
(b)Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA.Through its Center for WoMen and Religion,offers courses, programs, and services relatedto women's studies in theological education.
(a)MA Iowa, U of, Iowa City. With focus on women sstudies offered through traditional cepart-ments.
*MA Maryland, U of, College Park. As a speciali-zation in history or as a supporting field inAmerican studies.
(a)MA New York, SU of Binghamton, Binghamton. InHistory of Women.
*MA New York, SU of Buffalo. Through Americanstudies.
*MA Northeastern Illinois U, Chicago. Throughsocial sciences or American studies.
(a )*MA Northern Colorado, U of, Greeley. ThroughSchool of Educational Change and Development.
119
*MA Oklahoma, U of,interdisciplinarycollege.
Norman. Individualized,program in the graduate
*MA Sangamon SU, Springfield, IL. Throughindividual option program.
*MA Sark Jose SU, San Jose, CA. As an emphasis in
social science.
MA Sarah Lawrence C, Bronxville, NY. Through
women's history program.
*MA Wichita SU, Wichita, KS. Through liberalstudies program or as an emphasis (12-15 hours)in education, sociology, or cross-culturalcommunication.
*Graduate Minor Wisconsin, U of, Madison. Through
Option B Minor- Plan.
_a)These institutions and the Union Graduate School,New Haven, CT, have provisions for granting adoctoral degree in women's studies.
(b)A graduate school that offers degrees through aconsortium of nine Bay Area seminaries.
120
APPENDIX C
AN EXAMINATION OF THE RELIABILITY OF FOLLOWUPINFORMATION ON WOMEN'S STUDIES GRADUATES
Women's studies programs provided information onthe post7raduate activities of only 35 percent of thealumnae tnat were counted. Are the career patterns ofthe other 65 percent similar to the graduates thatwere tracked or do they differ significantly? Aremore or less employed? Are they equally satisfied/dissatisfied with their degree in women's studies?
The accompanying table is a comparison o tbQproportion of graduates seeking employment with theresponse rates to six program followup studies.Response rates to these surveys were quite variable,ranging from 48 percent to 100 percent, while theproportion of graduates seeking employment ranged onlyfrom 6 percent to 13 percent.
The Sarah Lawrence and Minnesota reports did notdiscuss their survey methodology, but reports from theother four programs included descriptions of theirdata colleion processes.
Lack of funds at Oregon precluded mailingreminders to nor respondents, the implicatio be-ing that the response rate would have been higherhad reminders been sent. Neither Pittsburgh norWashington reports commented on sending reminders, butthe Pittsburgh program felt that the 50 percentresponse rate was "very good for a mailed survey." Inthe George Washington University survey, graduateswere contacted by telephone to achieve a 100 percentresponse rate.
If one considers the age (over 50) of four of theGWU alumnae seeking employment as a factor in theirunemployment, then the proportion seeking employment
121
for the GWU group that responded 100 percent does notdiffer from groups with lower response rates. Otherfactors may also be involved, including graduate andundergraduate career patterns.
While there are little data to confirm thatrespondents and nonrespondents are seeking employmentat about the same rate, this analysis would suggest atentative observation that such may be the case.
TABLE C-1
PROPORTION OF GRADUATES SEEKING EMPLOYMENTCOMPARED WITH RESPONSE RATES ON FOLLOWUP SURVEYS OF
WOMEN'S STUDIES GRADUATES
Program_
YearDegree
E ablished
Yearof
Survey
Numberof
GraduatesSurveyed
ResponacRate
Fe_reent of
Grads.
SeekingEmployment
Univ. ofOregon (Certificate) 1974 1978 481 61(1)
Univ. of Pit burgh
(Certificate) 1973 1977 30 501 MI)
Univ. of Minnesota(B.A. Women'sStudies) 1975 1978 18 301 0
Univ. WashingtonD.A. General Inter-disciplinaryStudies) 1970 1975 27 672 112(2)
Sarah Lawrence(N.A. in Women'aHistory) 1972 1977 19 1001
George WashingtonUniv. (M.A. inSpecial Studies) 1973 1977 46* 1002 131(6)
*Four graduates from Oregon and two from GWU could not be located and did
not participate in the survey.
122
APPENDIX 0
SELECTION OFPRACTICUMS COMPLETED BY GRADUATES OF
THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY WOMEN'S STUDIESM.A. DEGREE PROGRAM
Center for Group Studies, Psychiatric InstituteFoundation -- Co-leader of a group of elderly women atthe Arcola House in Montgomery County.
Continuing Education for Women -- Assistant Counselorin career development class; prepared written case
Special Assistant to the Director of the U.S. Centerfor International Women's Year -- Developed a speak-er's bank by state; developed- a speaker's informationkit; researched and wrote a monthly newsletter,attended various meetings of persons concerned withIWY.
National Institute of Education -- Experience ina research office whose past and ongoing work relatedto data collection and data analysis on women.
EEO Services, Inc. Conducted research projectsconnected with servicing clients in EEO consultingrelationships.
Department of Labor, Office of Equal EmploymeatOpportunity Assistant counselor in a Developing NewHorizons group (CEW) .Planned and developed aspecial seminar.
Cook Cavanaugh Agency -- Planned and prepared mater-ials for workshops on women at Mount Vernon College,Health Services Administration, and Office of Educa-tion.
123
At EEOC -- Prepared brochure and a guidebook for theFederal Women's Program, reviewed and evaluated upwardmobility program, and served as a member of the IWYCouncil.
Assisted in preparation of course material and taughtworker's education courses et Federal City College inlabor history and shop stewards Prepared material fora course on women in the work force; was involved in
other work in the area of labor studies.
National Women's Political Caucus -- Organized asystem of communications and assistance,for womenpolitical candidates and party workers at local andstate levels.
Task Force on Women's Roles in the Church, Diocese CWashington, Protestant Episcopal Church Assisted in
designing, diagnostic and consciousness - raising events;
administered and evaluated the events.
Career Development for Employed Women (CEW) --
Assisted in planning a seminar for separated anddivorced women; related activities included developinga bibliography for the group.
Pre-operational planning for an educational broad-
casting station at the University of North Carolina --Activities included audience research and compilationof resource material for women's programming.
Developee, and taught a Women's Studies course atNorthern Virginia Community College, Annandale Campus,through their continuing education department.
Chairperson for a 3-day conference sponsored by theArlington County Commission on the Status of Women;coordinated all IWY activities for the commission.
CEW and coulseling office at the Northern VirginiaCommunity College, Alexandria -- Activities includedplanning a workshop and counseling students.
124
Assistant counselor in Career Planning for Young Womenand Career Development for Employed Women.
Assistant to chairperson of Interagency Committee toEliminate Sexism in the Public Schools, Connecticut.
Researched materials for and attended InternationalWomen's Year Conference in Mexico City.
Higher Education Administration Referral Services --Collected and analyzed data on women administatorsin higher education and developed strategies forincreasing number of women using referral services.
Assisted Political Action Coordinator of NationalWomen's Political Caucus -- Designed questionnaire forlocal caucuses regarding political involvement; set upinformation file on women candidates.
Women's Legal Clinic of the Community Legal Clinic ofthe National Law Center (GWU) -- Worked on divorcecases of varying complexity and related client problems; responsible for research, drafting, clientcounseling and filing of :legal papers at DC SuperiorCourt for cases.
Child Development Center of Northern Virginia --Observed counseling of young mothers with handicappedchildren; wrote a handbook for parents.
Planned and taught a 1-year women's studies course forsecondary students at the Maret School.
Wrote a pamphlet on the subject of rape for theFairfax County Commission on Women.
Office of Education/Women's Program Staff -- Gathered,classified, and analyzed information on OE programsrelated to women; classified materials and publics-Lions in WPS office and noted for implications forWEEA.
125
Assistant to acting chairperson, Department of TeacherEducation, Federal City College, for varied adminis-
trative areas.
Research analyst at Washington Center for Metropolitan
Studies Colic7cted data concerning relationship ofwomen's labor force participation to housing andtransportation patterns.
Special teaching assistant in Psychology 1 course at
GWU -- Expanded to include testing and counseling.
Legislative Assistant, Women's Issues, Office ofCongressman Donald M. Frasei Researched legislationaffecting women; wrote reports and articles fornewsletter; analyzed data.
Designed, developed, and taught noncredit seminar,
Women's Studies Bibliography, within Independent Studyprogram, Univerilty of Maryland.
Designed, developed, and taught noncredit seminar,
"How to Research and Write Nonfiction and Biography,"
within CEW, GWU.
Assistant to director, Office of Management Planning,
DHEW, for management incentives.
Co-leader'of children's group in pro-child unit,Department of Human Resources, Arlington County.Also, counselor assistant with nurses, working withdifficult or dying patients, Arlington CommunityHospital.
Teaching assistant in History 185 Women in American
History.
Assistant to coordinator, Equal Opportunity Programs,American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, and
Recreation -- Particular emphasis on Title IX, Higher
Education Act, impact on women's athletics.
National Council on Crime and Delinquency -- Researchfor Council's policy statement on women ..)ffenders.
Assistant to Women's Program Coordinators, DOM,Washington, D.C. Government Assisted in implementa-tion of the agency's IWY plan of action.
Montgomery County Commission on Aging -- Administeredand coordinated a discount program for senior citizensin Montgomery; supervised volunteers; updated andstreamlined the discount handbook.
CEW Developed a series of preretirement- seminarscovering financial, social, psychological, andphysical aspects.
The Psychiatric Institute Co-led therapy groupsoffered by the Adjunctive Therapy Department, in-cluding assertiveness training, intensive care unitsports, and occupational therapy.
127
APPENDIX E
ESTHER STINEMAN REQUEST FOR INFORMATIONON EMPLOYMENT OF WEN'S STUDIES GRADUATES
129
Tie University of Wisconsin System
%compel,STUDIES LIIIRAILIAN.ATLARGE414 P44444,1411 L Way 1722 Sou Sum i M.dka 5754
February 27, mo
Women's Studies as a discipline has become increasillgly visible inthe undergraduate academic curriculum. There is much interest amongthose involved in Women's Studies in the University of Wisconsinsystem concerning the employment of graduates with minors and/orcertificates in Women's Studies. Specifically, we are wonderingwhether women who can demonstrate a substantial course backgroundin Women's Studies can use this as a marketable skill. Do you havedocumentation concerning specific employment areas where such abackground might be an asset?
Have you done any research on this topic? Have you noted any trendsor patterns? Do you know of any research being conducted on thisissue? Can you identify specific Women's Studies courses or typesof courses which might be considered particularly helpful to womenseeking professional positions?
Any information regarding'the ways in which a Women's Studies back-ground might enhance the credentials of a female job applicant isof interest to us. We loOK forward to hearing from you
Cordially,
:t r_,Esther StinemanWomen's Studies Librarian-at-Large
r Wy.Leragsse,14diton, Milwautes, Othliech.PLA.11.. r MAI. Stem. s.pedv, wmi.. at tr.Uh4as1 qv Comfy. Girton aun4p. rend the Lk, Fox Vein, tAtlfto.st Caunti, PausttWi C mty, Mmineige Cavmr,IdAsthrshitiVaed County. Medford. aktainA. Red County. Sksionsh cammiy, Washinstati County, Wauk.ihi Coltriy. S.trnon. Stitt-gh
130
RESPONDENTS TO THE ESTHER STINEMAN REQUEST
Adult Education Association of the United States ofAmerica; Chair, Continuing Education for Women
American Advertising Federation; Manager, Informationand Educational Services
American Association of University Women; AssistantDirector of Program, Women
American Business Women's Association; Public Rela-tions Coordinator
American CheCommittee
cal society; Chair, Women Chemists
American Historical Association; Assistant ExecutiveDirector.
American Mathematical Society; Deputy ExecutiveDirector
American Society of Biological Chemists; Chairman,
Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women
American Society of Women Accountants; ExecutiveDirector
Association of American Colleges Project on the Statusand Education of Women; Administrative Associate
Association of College-Unions International; Coordi-nator, Wome4's Concerns
Association for Continuing Higher Education; ExecutiveVice President
131
Brooklyn College of the City of New York; Cn-coordi-nator, Women's Studies Program
Business and Professional Women's Foundation; Librar-ian
Central Intelligence Agency; Federal Women's ProgramCoordinator
Coordinating Committee on Women in the HistoricalProfession; Executive Secretary
'Council for Career Planning,trative Assistant
Massachusetts, University o
Staff
Incorporated; Adminis-
Amh- st Women's Studies
The Medical College of Pennsylvania and HospitalCenter for Women in Medicine
National Association of Bank Woien, Incorporated;Educational Director
,National Association of Women in Construction; Chair-woman, Occupation Research and Placement
New York, State University of, Buffalo; AssociateDirector of University Placement and Career Guidance
St. John's University, Jamaica, New York; StaffPerson
Thomas Jefferson College, Allendale, Michigan;Chairperson, Committee on the Status of Women andGirls
The United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.; Coordi-nator, Employment Opportunities
Women in Communications, Incorporated.; ExecutiveDirector
APPENDIX F
OCCUPATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES (IN -0 N'S STUDIES)
The information presented here is from appendix Ato a Report to the Educational Policies Committee fromElizabeth Berry, Director, 'Women's Studies Program,
California State University, Northridge, April 3,1977. It has been reprinted with the permission ofthe author.
LmIlpl_19b Listings
The following sample job listings were taken fromthe Chronicle of Higher Education, the Women's StudiesNewsletter, the newsletter of the Bay Area Women'sCoalition, and notices from the University of Cali-fornia, Berkeley's Center for Continuing Education forWomen.
Employment with a B.A. DegreeIn Women's Studies
Director, Women's Vocational Institute, SanFrancisco
Fundraiser, Women's Vocational Institute, SanFrancisco
Affirmative Action Officer, State University ofNew York, Binghamton
Women's Job Development Specialist, WilliamPaterson College, N.J.
Assistant Director of Personnel and AffirmativeAction, State University of New York, Canton
Federal Women's Program Personnel, Los AngelesExecutive Director for Connecticut Women'sEducational and Legal Fund, New Haven
Assistant Project Coordinator and Field Coordi-nator for Project Agility: provides counsel-ing, support, and physical training forwomen beginning as police officers or otherprotective service officers, San Francisco
133
Public Relations Assistant for Home EconomicsNewspaper, Bay Area
Book Editor, Distribution Manager, ClearinghouseCoordinator and Managing Editor of Women'sStudies Newsletter, Administrator/in-serviceTeacher at The Feminist Press, Old Westbury,N.Y.
Counseling Assistant for Center, for ContinuingEducation of Women, University of California,Berkeley
Manager, Women's Resource Center, University ofCalifornia, San Diego
Assistant Director of Athletics, especiallywomen's team sports and clubs, ManhattanvilleCollege, N.Y.
Counselor for Women's Shelter, Berkeley
Employment with an M.A. Degree(With B.A. Degree in Women's Studies)
Affirmative Action Researcher, Rutgers Univer-sity, NJ
Director of Affirmative Action for Women, Univer-sity of Washington, Seattle
Project Director, Equal Rights for Women inEducation, Denver
Training Consultant for National Women's Organ-ization, N.Y.
Associate Director of campus programming,especially for needs of women students,Washington University, St. Louis
Assistant to Coordinator for Minority Affairs/Women's Programs, University of Nebraska,Omaha
Administrative Head at the Center for ContinuingEducation for Women, University of California,Berkeley
Women's Re-entry Coordinator, Nact CollegeDirector of Center for Continuing. Education,
Claremont CollegeAssistant Dean for Students and Minority Affairs,State University of New York, Stony Brook
134
1
Drnctcr of Women' sCincinnati
Director of
AlabamaLecturer in Women's
Studies,
Women's Studies,
StudiesSocial Scieaces), San Diego
University of
University of
(Behavioral andState University
Employment with Ph.D. or M.D.(With B.A, in Women's Studies)
Psychologists with interest in women's studies,York College, City University of New York
Director of Women's Studies, University ofOklahoma
Curriculum Coordint,. -.for Training Institute onEex Desegregation in Public Schools, ContinuingEducation for Women, Rutgers University,N.J.
Woman Historian /Coordinator Women' s StudiesProgram, Newark College, Rutgers University,
N.J.Woman historian with specialty in Women in
History, U.C., DavisSociologist or Social Anthropologist in Women'sStudies, Governors State University, Ill.'
Assistant Professor Sociology to teach Sociologyof Women, University of Pittsburgh
Sociologist specializing in Sociology of Women,University of Aaryland, Baltimore
Associate Professor of Women's Studies, to teachadvanced Feminist Theory, Douglass College,N.J.
Coordinator- of Women's Studies Program, StateUniversity College, New Peitz, N.Y.
Director of Women's Studies, University ofConnecticut
Positions in European and Western Civilization,specialty in Women and/or Ethnic Studies,Sangamon State University, T11.
Director of Women's Studies, Ohio State University, Columbus
135
Assistant Professor of omen's Studies (Psycho-
btologs) 1 HhIVHFnillf nr Washington, SeatlePresident, Wells ddllege, New YorkPresident, Barnard College, New YorkGynecologist and COGYN nurse practitioner to
coordinate Women's Health Clinic and Family
Planning Clinic, Provincetown, Mass.Feminist Doctor for Women's Health Clinic, IowaCity
Physician for non -pro at health clinic for women,Vermont Women's Health Center, Burlington
Associate Professor, with tenure, to teachinterdisciplinary Women's'Studies courses andcoordinate Women'r Studies program
Assistant or Associt.te Professor to teachinterdisciplinary women's studies courses andserve as managing editor of a women's studies
journal, University of Maryland
Jobs ReqLliEiajiric2E12Aze of Women's Studies
The following was taken from appendix B to theReport to the Educational Policies Committee fromElizabeth Berry, Director, Women's Studies Program,
California State University, Northridge, April 3,1977. It has been reprinted with the permission ofthe author.
Women's center directors, both campus-based andcommunity
Student activity directors for women students'progrvqs
Commissioners= and staff of Commissions on the
Status of Women, Federal, state, county and
municipalDirectors and staff of women's organizationsEditors of women's publicationsLobbyists on legislation affecting womenResearchers, in public and private organizations
and institutions, on women-related topicsEmployee organization representatives in women's
work areas
136
Directors and staff of service programs, suchas health care, counseling, and financialconsultants
Instructors of inservice training in government,business, and industry on topics related to
womenCurriculum specialists to develop materials
without sex-role stereotypesAttorneys specializing in laws regarding women,
including laws on discriminationProfessional writers of books and articles
related to womenExecutives and professional staff of women-
oriented businesses, industries, and educa-tional institutions
Project directors in research and developmentareas for women such as the WEEA and WEALprojects
Teachers and professors in traditionalplines with women's. studies topicswomen's studies courses
Journalists covering both traditionaltraditional activities of women
Specialists and consultants in specificallywomen-related areas, such as abortion, rape,
career
disci-and in
and non-
sex discrimination,planning
Counselors and therapists *or womenCorrection officers for women's prisons,
Lion and parole workPolice officers working
as offendersCritics and theorists
studies itselfCurators of specialwomen
Religious leaders,
and rabbis andactivities for
Design engineersdevelopment orused by women
re-entry programs,
pro a-
with women as victims or
in the
collections
suchas
area of women's
of materials on
as ministerscoordinator of
priests,religious
womenfor items used by women and foradaptation of equipment or tools
137
Directors and staff in government agencies forwomen, such as Women's Bureau (Department ofLabor), Women's Action Program (HEW), CivilRights Commission, EEOC, Title IX ComplianceOffice
Librarians for reference materials on womenBiographers of womenAffirmative action coordinatorsProducers and directors of women-related filmsSocial workers working with individual women and
groupsDirectors and staff of referral agenciesPublic school Title IX administratorsTeacher trainers (to train and re-train publicschool teachers in non-sexist methodology)
ERENCES
A search was made of Women's Studies Newsletterfrom Volume I (1972), and of Women's StudiesAbstracts from Volume I (1972), for litersturon women's studies programs and graduates;evaluation in women's studies; student viewsof women's studies; job advertisemente for
persons with a background in women's studies. Acomputer search was made of the ERIC files, theSocial Science Citation Index, and DissertationAbstracts International from 1972. In thesesearches, American and Black (including Afro-American) Studies were chosen in addition toWomen and Women's Studies as primary fields.Descriptors employed were skill, employment,competency, career, job, unemployment, per-formance, success, foliowup, and evaluation. (To
avoid unwieldy numbers of course evaluations,
titles containing "course" were rejected.)
We also examined numerous monographs on women inhigher education, such as those included inAcademic Women on the Move (Rossi and Calderwood,1973) and Women and the Power to Change (Howe,
1973), and studies like ppIomea0o:urnJILALftEryucion: Their Current Participa-tion, Proppetc2EtherfiRecommenda-tions for Acill(thatarnaliMission onHigher Education, 1973) and Women in Bi_gherEducation (Furniss and Graham, 1974).
Our search was also designed to locate literaturerelated to the evaluative and comparative con-cerns of this study. We sought evaluations and
assessments of women's studies and women'sstudies programs that might indicate or describequalities, competencies, skills, and experiencesgained by women's studies students in theirdegree programs, but anticipated correctly thatlittle would yet be available to define the
139
Impact on students of a women's studies degreeor program, as distinguished from that of aparticular course or courses in women's studies.Research in this area is still closely related toinitial graduate followup and tracking.
Also, we sought literature on graduates (and thetracking of alumnae/0 of other nontraditional,interdisciplinary, and/or feminist educationalprograms; information on the marketplace in whichwomen's studies students would be using theirdegrees aad the support orlered them by theirprograms in search of work; literature on therelation of education and work and on theuses of the liberal arts and the assessment ofexperiential learning; and literature on femalecareer patterns and work behaviors.
Among the literature of background interest onthe question, "What do women's studies graduatesdo?" was a study of "University Student AttitudesTowards Women's Studies" (Bravy and Sedlacek,1976). Its abstract notes the "ambivalence"of both women and men surveyed about the practi-cality of a women's studies major in finding a
jo, and pointed to this issue as a prime areafor further research. In this study, enteringfreshmen had been asked whether they agreed thatwomen's studies would not be a good preparationfor getting a job after graduation, and whetherthey agreed that prospective employers might beprejudiced against persons majoring in women'sstudies. Since they had also been ambivalentabout their awareness of the women's studiesprogram on their campus and about the nature of"what women's studies is," the results hereshould not be surprising and are, perhaps, morepositive about the student attitudes in this areathan the abstract would suggest.
In an impact survey sampling nonparticipants'attitudes toward women's studies (DeBiasi, 1979),
1140
a university student population that included allclasses and all schools was asked whether itthought women's studies related in some ways totheir future work; 57 percent believed that it
did.
A "Shoptalk" column in Women's Work (LaBier,1977) reported interviews with women's studiesprogram administrators and women administratorsin Government agencies about job prospects for
women with a degree in women's studies. It
concluded that this diversified and timely areaof concentration would be valuable in many kindsof work, if not necessarily a guarantee ofobtaining employment.
News for Alumni (Bowling Green State University,February 1-98) reported approval by the OhioBoard of Regents of a university baccalaureateprogram in women's studies. "Although studentsmay major or minor in women's studies," theunsigned article noted, "it is advised thatstudents select the program as a second major
for reasons of employability. Career posi-tions include counseling, personnel management,
journalism, politics, and law,- among others."
A planning/position paper, "Vocational Possibili-ties of Graduates of Women's Studies Programs,"developed at the State University College ofNew York/New Paltz (Gambill, 1978), described
women's studies serving as a catalyst for womenstudents to take themselves seriously, offeringsupport and challenge to enter fields tradi-tionally closed to them and to move into thevanguard of new career areas contributing toequity for women. The paper also noted women'sstudies' usefulness and attraction to teachers,counselors, and others already employed who wishto infuse new knowledge about women's issues into
established fields of work.
141
3. "Women's Studies Programs" (1980) was beingcompiled by the National Women's Studies Associa-tionas this study was in press; it appeared inthe Winter 1980 issue of Women's Studies News-letter. Reprints are available with a stamped,self-addressed envelope from either NWSA (Univer-sity of Maryland, College Park 20742) or TheFeminist Press (Box 334, Old Westbury, New York11568). The survey to update 1978 data for thislisting sought more detailed information oncredit-hour-requirements and on:particular titlesof degrees than had been included previously, andreports new programs and various degrees notpreviously listed.
4. Among the resolutions passed by those present atthe plenary session of the Barnard CollegeConference on Special Programs for Women inHigher Education, March 1979, was a call to NWSAto undertake publication of a "women's guide tohigher education (tentatively titled Guide to theQuality of Women - Centered Education) that evalu-ates the adequacy of support for women on campus(e.g., the provision of services, curriculum,scheduling, and the status of female faculty andstaff)."
5. Generally speaking, the employment patterns ofwomen's studies graduates reported here aresimilar to those women college graduates ingeneral. Including those employed part-tiT, 58percent of the B.A. degree alumnae and 63 iercentof the certificate/minor alumnae are in tLe corkforce, values comparable to the 61 percent workforce participation of women college graduatesnationwide (U.S. Department of Labor, 1976). Thefive B.A. and seven certificate graduates workingpart-time represent 8 percent and 14 percent,respectively, of the total employed with eachcredential, values lower than the nationalaverage of 23 percent of women with 4 or moreyears of college who are part-time workers (U.S.Department of Labor, 1975);
I142
One national survey shows that 29 percent ofwomen with B.A. degrees expect to begin graduateor professional study within 1 year of collegegraduation (Baird, 1973); a comparable proportion(32 percent) of B.A. degree graduates in this
study are continuing into graduate or pro-fessional schools and training.
The unemployment rate for women ever 20 years ofage has been 6 to 8 percent over the past several
years, the period when data have been collectedon these women's studies graduates. For allwomen college graduates, nationally, the un-employment figure those not working andseeking employment -- is about 3 percent,according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics(Monthly Labor Review, 1979). Other researchindicates that unemployment for recent womencollege graduates who have not previously been inthe work force is 8 to 10 percent (Royer andCraager, 1976; Bienstock, 1973).
6. The question of "underemployment" is a complex
one, the more so when the populations involvedare female. Some researchers argue that -- whilethe number of openings in occupations previouslyfilled by college graduates does not increase asrapidly as the number of graduates -- collegegraduates create, move into, and increase the
productivity of new occupations (Witmer, 1978;
Ginzberg, 1980). Such a line of argument couldhave potential applicability to research onwomen's studies graduates and might usefully betested there.
7. Of the institutions listed here, only Goddard-Cambridge offered an autonomous M.A. in feminist
istudies; that program was terminated n 979.The Cornell Program offers an interdisciplinaryminor. All other degrees reported here areindividualized, disciplinary or interdisciplinary
143
concentrations and/or offered in associationwith a university or field /departmental degreeprogram.
Since the emphasis of this study was "graduates,"we did not specifically seek to ascertain numbersof students currently enrolled in women'sstudies degree programs, either undergraduate orgraduate. Several programs did send enrollmentfigures, but these alone are jknadequate forprojecting numbers of future graduates.
Table 3 shows that at least five persons receivedan interdisciplinary M.A. or Ph.D. at Cornellwith an elected minor in women's studies,Other institutions are knoWn to offer or beinitiating departmental or committee proceduresfor graduate minors (e.g., Governors StateUniversity, The Universities of Arizona andWisconsin), but current information on numbers ofstudents enrolled and/or alumnae of these andother programs was not available for this report.
Enrollment information provided by GovernorsState for the years 1975=78 indicates approxi-mately a dozen students have or soon will havecompleted M.A.'s at that institution (Gross,1979). The State University of New York atBinghamton reported 10 degree candidates inits History of Women Program (MA. and Ph.D),and Eastern Michigan University reported thatit expects 10 students to complete the newwomen's studies M.A. available there (throughindividualized studies) within the next 2 years("Graduate Programs in Women's Studies," Fall1978; Winter 1979).
8. Streicher reported that 10 of the 18 employedpart-time had school-aged children, and 6 wereever 50 years of age. All those utlemployedand/or those working as volunteers were marriedand living with husbands; two had childrenyounger than 5, and the ritt,rs were older women.
144
The median age of these earliest GWU graduateswas 40 at the time of the followup survey; 13
were between 50 aad 59 years old. Many had beenout of the work force for a number of yelrs,and their career expectations may differ fremthose of a younger or already employed group.Streicher reported from her data that some ofthese alumnae did not have employment goals inmind when enrolling in this program, and impliedthat some were satisfied with part-time andvolunteer work; some supported by husbands werenot necessarily motivated to seek full-timeemployment. GW alumnae in her survey who wereemployed and planning careers in the paid laborforce were more dissatisfied with their degree inwomen's studies than were those less career-oriented.
9. See Women's Studies Evaluation Handbook, Millsapet al., 1979.
10. Further analysis of the Wilson Women's StudiesFellows data might involve comparisons with"Where are They Now?," a 1977 survey by theFoundation of Woodrow Wilson Fellows and Dis-sertation Fellows elected between 1945 and 1971.
It might also explore various "women's studies"questions and correlations: the relationshipbetween field of study and degree-grantinginstitutions to employment patterns, for example,or the relationship of fields of study anddegree-granting institutions to feminist scholar-ly activity in the field and women's studiescourses and related activity on campus. To what
extent did these students participate in a
feminist academic community, local or national;to what extent was their work shared only with
particular mentors, advisors, or peers? informa-
tion made available to us did include data on"institution granting the Ph.D." and "institution
at which employed," but analyses of those data
were not undertaken here.
145
Questionnaires used in preparing "Undergraduateand Graduate American Studies Programs in theUnited States. A Survey" (Bassett, 1975) weremailed in the spring of 1973 and reflect datafrom 1972 back. Information reported there onB.A. graduates is rather general, expressed aspercentages of institutions surveyed reporting,mentioning, or indicating particular fields oroccupations ati_racting or claiming graduates:42 percent, teaching; 32 percent, law; media andgovernment service, 15 percent each; business,14 percent; social work, museum curatorship,library science, and medicine, "most of therest." Some 22 percent of the institutionsspecified graduate study in other disciplinesas the immediate career choice of the B.A.graduate's, only 11 percent in American studies.
Bassett confirms in conversation and correspond-ence that "the careers of both undergraduate andgraduate students in American studies was one ofthe 'softest' areas in my questionnaire. Almost40 percent of the institutions failed to respondto this question at all, and those that did replycautioned that the "data was impressionistic, notreally firm."
Bassett's questionnaire did ask if significantdifferences existed in the vocational preferencesof men and women graduates of A.S. programs.Only 50 percent of the sample responded to thatquestion. Of those who responded, 80 percentindicated no difference; those who found adifference mrote that more women become teachers,more men attorneys.
In "American Studies Graduates and the CareersThey Choose: A National Study" (Whitlow, 1977),the author again reports that only 42 (30.4percent) of the 277 questionnaires he sent werereturned with enough precise data to be useful.Some institutions responded that information on
146
graduates was not kept or that their programswere too new to have reliable data.
Whitlow's survey was organized to provide com-parison with data on percentages of careerchoice reported in American Studies in theUnited States (Walker, 1958). His results,presumably reflecting data from 1975 back, showedAmerican studies B.A. graduates choosing law, 27percent; public school teaching, 8 percent;business, 7 percent; graduate work in Americanstudies, history and English, communicaticns andunspecified, a total of 18 percent; governmentservice/politics, 4 percent; journalism, 4
percent; and 1-2 percent each in public/socialservice, urban affairs, librarianship, media,
museum work, and publishing. Another 18 percentwere reported as "miscellaneous," and less than afull percentage in other graduate fields ofstudy.
The major difference reported between the 1950'sand 1970's American studies data was a rise inlaw school attendance, in almost direct propor-tion to the decline in students entering teach-ing, analyzed as a function of the changing jobmarket. Other shifts showed drops in business,government service, social work, the ministry,
and library/museum work, with increases in
graduate school attendance; urban affairs and
media had not been reported categories in the
earlier study. Sex does not seem to have been avariable in either Whitlow's or Walker's surveys.
Just as women's studies researchers will recog-nize the data-gathering problems faced by theircolleagues in American studies, those involved inthe development of women's studies will alsorecognize many of the debates surrounding the
development of Black Studies. One consistenttheme expressed in the collection of essaystitled The Black Studies Debate (Gordon and
147
Rosser, 1974) is the criticism that Black studiespr,grams (alone) will not prepare students to becomfc,Lent to deal with communications, laborlaw, business, finance, and medicine. The sttAyof black culture might be a luxury for blackstudents, though a necessity for white students.
Some authors here speak of the need for a trainedintelligentia of black men and women, but mostwho attempt to define the educational ends to
which the black man should aspire do seem to bethinking only of men.
In the conc'uding chapter of Black S_tudies:Threat or Challenge, Nick Aaron Ford offers"Thought Provoking Answers to ChallengingQuestions." Question (4) asks "what can astudent do with a major in Black studies?'Ford's answer:
lie can do anything that one with amajor in philosophy can do exceptteach philosophy. Yet I havenever heard the major in philos-ophy questioned because of itslack of focus on immediate jobrequirements. In addition tobeing qualified to teach Blackstudies in secondary schools, astudent with a Black studies majorcan qualify to enter professionalschools of law, medir.ine andsocial work, as well as variousfields of grr.duate study leadingto higher degrees, as is the caseof any other undergraduate majorwith sufficient concentratedelectives or required minors orsecond majors (most generallyrequired i Black studies)...
1 1. q
One black faculty member from amidwestern university offered thisexplanation: "We know that Blackstudies, by themselves, won't geljobs. We know that we needdoctors, lawyers and other pro-fessionals in the black community.But we hope that by the aid of theperspectives of Black studiesprograms black professionals won't
be as concerned with making$30,000 a year as they are withgiving effective service to theblack community" '(Ford, 1873,
p. 182).
Others of Ford's questions any answers, for
example, on the concept and objectives of Blackstudies, would also be relevant for comparisonswith women's studies, as would his historical and
structural data and analyses.
A paper on methodological strategies for training
graduate students in Black history notes, "It is
important to equip students with the knowledgethat millions of persons in this country will
never consider their work important, and not just
for the reasons that usually plague academics...,
but because anything having to do with persons of
African descent is believed to be of littleconsequence. Black students who have managed to
get to the university usually understand this,
but considerable emotional and psychologicalsupport will have to be provided those white
studens who, although interested in BlackHistory, expect their interest will receive thesame support and respect as their fellows who are
interested in Medieval History" (Jones, 1975).
-12. "Women's studies graduate" and "graduate of awomen's college" are not always distinct cate-gories, of course. According to Howard (1978),
149
women':i colleges are somewhat more likely tooffer women's studies courses than are coeduca-tional institutions, with 83 percent of women'scolleges vA only 70 percent of coeducationalschools in her sample reporting courses and/orprograms. Women's colleges comprise 6 percent ofall 4-year institutions, but they are only aslightly higher percentage, 9 percent, of the4-year institutions listed in "Women's StudiesPrograms" (1978); only 15 of 24 women's collegeson that list offer a credential in women'sstudies.
Reports to this study indicate that at least afew women's colleges choose not to developwomen's studies programs, but instead attempt toemphasize and incorporate a feminist perspectivethroughout the curriculum, encouraging studentsto undertake projects and research on women'sissues. Depending on the ideology of theparticular institution and its implementation,of course, alumnae of women's colleges mayhave participated in educacioval experiencesvarying from fully feminist to fundamental/conservative.
In the spring of 1979, the Women's CollegeCoalition received foundation funding to developa data base on women's colleges. In a 2-yeardata collection project, the Coalition willprovide a profile of undergraduate, tingle -sexinstitutions, as well as conduct and report onspecial topics of critical interest to women'scolleges and women's education advocates. Thatproject could and should be able to gather andcontribute data to the sorts of comparativestudies projected here.
13. Productive comparisons would also be possiblewith (women) graduates of cooperative degreeprograms not necessarily designed primarily forwomen or including women's studies curriculum
150
components. Information on this population could
be derived from studies at the CooperativeEducation Research Center, Northeastern Univer-
sity, Boston (Brown, 1978).
Relatedly, one would wish to investigate theimpact of women's studies curriculum on graduatesof 2-year institutions to explore the effect ofwhat some have called their "cooling out"function: a process of institutional tracking ofstudents to lowered aspirations for further studyand/or professional work (Shor, 1979).
14. Several institutions and organizations havepublished research reports on CEW alumnae thatmight provide bases for comparison of'thispopulation with women's studies graduates(Schletzer et al., 1967; Richter and Whipple,1972; Seay and Jackson, 1973; Osborn and Strauss,1975; ,Actin and Bisconti, 1976). The Office ofInstitutional Policy Research on Women's Educa-tion, Radcliffe College, is currently studying
the impact of that college's various lifelong-
learning programs, and should become anotherimportant data source for comparative study.(See also related studies in this series on
re-entry women in women's studies and women's
studies in the community college, and noterecommendation in the preface to this monographfor further study of noncredit curriculum devel-
opment in campus women's centers, continuingeducation for women, and community based women's
centers. To that list might also be added thevarious training programs being established for
displaced homemakers.)
15. For instances: "A Certificate in Women's Studies
is relevant to many areas of employment, par-ticularly counseling, public education, affirma-
tive action, law enforcement, management,personnel, extension, and agencies whose clien-
tele include women and men sensitive to thetreatment of the sexes as unequal persons."
151
"Students enter nontraditional careers for women,like law, medicine, science, theology andbusiness, but they are also in the vanguard ofmany new careers, such as: mid-wifery -, para-legal and para-medical jobs, and environmentalprojects. Women's studies has actually createdjob opportunities by opening up new areas ofinterest about women, e.g., crisis interventionwork with, battered women and assault and rapevictims; work with older women returning toschool; development of new concepts and tech-niques in psychology through integration offeminist values in therapy..."
"The purpose of the Women's Studies Cognate is toprepare students for managerial, professional,and public service occupations by increasingtheir understanding of events that will shapeour lives in the z,,e twentieth century.Under the supervis.)11 of the Office of Women'sStudies, students will select a focus for theircognate courses which complements their concen-tration...Students are encouraged to take a
senior seminar or practicum which will integratetheir course work and orient them to careeropportunities. Students are also encouraged toacquire administrative, research, and communica-tions skills through courses such as parliamen-tary procedure, statistics, computer science andforeign languages."
"The M.A. in Women's Studies is a career-orienteddegree combining practical and theoreticaltraining within a context of feminist politicalanalysis...This program is designed for womenwho wish to further their present careers inbusiness, health, government, education, thearts, etc., as well as for those women who wishto resume their active participation in theworkforce after a period of absence."
152
6
And, in a different tone, from an evaluation andassessment report: "...The skills in analysis andcriticism which theWomen's Studies curriculumseeks to develop are the best guarantors we knowof continued intellectual growth and habits oflifelong learning. What 'body of knowledge' ourstudents will pursue beyond the limits of theirdegree is hardly for us to determine...Under-graduate education, at its best, stimulatesstudents to pursue knowledge, to interpret andreinterpret familiar materials and receiveddoctrine, to discover neglected sources of
understanding, and to create new modes ofexperiencing the world and living meaningfully init...Itj.s the special task of Women's Studies toentourage students to choose their mode or modesof participation in the public realm: to enjoy awider range of options and opportunities, inprofession, avocation, and lifestyles."
Women's Studies Newletter and NWSA have not yetstrenuously undertaken to seek out job notices,except for the informal Job Information Exchangeat the Association's annual meeting. Mostnotices sent for possible publication in theNewsletter are those meant to reach its reader-ship of feminist educators, although in these
days of affirmative action, one suspects some
percentage of pro forma mailings to identified
women's groups and publications.
The great variety of programs for women in andaround educational institutions would presume aneed for feminist educators, researchers,administrators and counselors, but another studybeyond this one would be needed to chart thetraining, recruitment, and employment mechanismsactually or potentially involved. Postsecondaryacademic and administrative positions are likely
to be advertised in the various professional,
discipline, and education journals. Women'scenters positions are advertised through feminist
153
education networks and general women's movementpublications, but many, it would seem, are mostlikely to be announced locally, regionally, orthrough civil service or system channels.Public school teachers with women's studiescredentials or training in women's studiessummer institutes might be expected to be inparticular demand in those states that havelegislated development of nonsexist curriculum,but additional investigation would be needed totest this hypothesis. Various federallymandatedpositions (Title IX Coordinator, AffirmativeAction Officer, Vocational Education Sex EquityCoordinator, etc.) seem, at the outset, often tobe assigned to staff already in place, and onlyafter or in larger institutions to become newpositions, a pattern familiar in women's studiesas well.
17. On the other hand, the letter from the AmericanChemical Society's Women Chemists Committeeremarked: "In the field of chemistry, Women'sStudies is not a marketable skill. For ascientist, a good scientific background withwriting courses and business courses are of themost use as far as selling oneself in the jobmarket..." The statement is true enough, but arelated truth is the unusually high proportion ofwomen scientists, particularly those who marryand have families, who drop out of the work forceat all degree levels. One National ScienceFoundation report (1977) indicates that 47percent of women trained in science were not inthe work force in 1974, as compared with 12percent- of men trained in science and 36.5percent of all women college graduates.
The NSF considers this problem serious. It nowfunds programs to assist women scientists toreenter the work force, and others to encouragewomen students to enter or continue trainingin science fields. Women's studies and its
151
graduates could conceivably be part of thesolution in several ways. As the research on,and responses to, women's studies cited indicate,a certificate or minor in women's studies mightwell assist the woman science major to prepare toaccommodate marriage, family, and career inscience, and in preparing her to confrontthe sexism inherent in both the style of thescientific professions and many of their researchagendas. Other women's studies graduatesmight serve as counselors, advisors, adminis-trators, or teachers, whose offices could supportwomen scientists in continuing their careers. At
least some NSF-sponsored projects for womenGcientists have been coordinated by women'sstudies programs.
And there is now an entire curriculum andpedagogical literature .developing around math
education and its sex biases and variables.
18. That figure is not broken down by sex. "Aceord-
ing to the College Placement Council, Inc.,...,women graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1977received only 19 percent of the job offerstendered by private industry and, except forteaching positions, those of federal, state andlocal governments; and nonprofit organizations.That left men with 81 percent of the offers fromwhich to pick. One reason for this imbalance isthe nature of the jobs available. Fully 55.
percent were for openings in various fields ofengineering. And women with bachelor's degreesin engineering did ciltite well with beginningsalary offers, on the average, higher than men.But jobs in the humanities or social sciences,fields traditionally chosen by women, amounted
to 6 percent of the offers, and the councilreports that in all the disciplines other thanengineering, women's (salary) averages were lower
in some cases, considerably lower" (Northrop,1978).
155
19. This mode of job development is associated withthe work of Richard Nelson Bolles, whose WhatColor is Your Pai,ichute is something of anundlrgrourd classic (Bolles, 1977). Someuniversities are providing similar innovative/imaginative career-planning services. ColumbiaUniversity's DIG (Deeper Investigation ofGrowth), for example, is "designed to helpindividuals by teaching them to identify con-nections between successes in life, and torecognize emerging patterns that may be relevantto career direction" (Gummere, 1972). Oneuniversity internship director interviewed byStineman in the course of her research maderelated recommendations specifically about theprivate sector, suggesting that women's studiesstudents learn to study the larger companiesfor interest in setting up career advancementprograms for women in which they might partici-pate, and/or to study their affirmative actionand personnel programs to see how receptive anenvironment they provided for women employees.
20. "Employers and co-workers sometimes treat femaleworkers in ways which neutralize task orientationand elicit sex-role orientation. Women workers,employers, and co-workers can be trained to beaware of and to avoid styles of interactionthat disrupt task effectiveness. In general,research has neglected the immediate interactionsof working women and the ways in which rolepartners most notably co-workers, employersand husbands -- regard and discourage aspirationand effort...The worker's own awareness of therole pressures producing the conflict can do muchto disarm its effectiveness. Most women have agreater stake in doing the job well than ingaining male approval for their femininity...Women who believe that men approve femaleCompetence permit themselves high aspirations;those who believe that men disapprove, radically
1Ni56
restrict their goals. Bringing about changes inthese perceptions needs to go back to adolescenceand probably before" (Long Laws, 1976).
To which one might only add the possibility ofwomen-centered women who have found female__support for their competence and aspirations andcan thus be less emotionally concerned about maleapproval or disapproval.
21. This rather crude occupational sociology does
not, of course, adequately distinguish tradi-tional, nontraditional, an:, feminist aspects ofwomen's studies graduates' involvement inacademia, self-employment in business and the
arts, and/or political activity.
157 171
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7
1 7/4 .1). 9, CICIVEFZIMENT pRumw3 OFFICE :1990 6
This series includfa the following monographs:
The Effectiveness of Women's Studies Teaching
The Impact of Women's Studies on the Campus andthe Disciplines
The Involvement of Minority Women in Women'sStudies
The Relationship BetT4een.Women's Studies,Career Development, and Vocational Choice
-Entry Women Involved in Women's Studies
Women's Studies As a Catalyst for Faculty Devel-opment
Wooen's Studies Graduates
`s Studies in the Community Cllege
Single copies of these monographs may be re-quested from: Social Processes /Women's ResearchTeam, National Institute of Education, Mail Stop 7,
1200-19th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C4 20208.