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[Donna Kelsch Seldomridge] Good afternoon. This is the recording of the interview with Dr. Jessica Schiffman, the Associate Chair at

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the Department of Women and Gender Studies at the University of Delaware on June 14th, 2012.

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The interviewer is Donna Kelsch Seldomridge. And we will be talking about the history of

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the Women's Studies Department at the University of Delaware. First, I'd like to get some background information about you.

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Where did you grow up? And what was it like growing up as a girl? [Jessica Schiffman] I moved around a lot as a child. I was born in Manhattan,

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left there when I was 5, moved to a small rural community in Pennsylvania. Carlisle. It had a college, which

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was probably its distinguishing feature. And I lived there for a good number of years into my teen years.

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Although I spent a year in India and a year in France during that period with my, following my father

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as he did work in those places. And then when I was 16, I went to boarding school, and graduated from a boarding school

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in another very small rural Pennsylvania town. It was an all-girls school, Linden Hall in Lititz, Pennsylvania.

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So those are the childhood years. What it was like being a girl. You know, there were a lot of mixed messages about it.

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This was the, I was born in 1953, so this covers the late 50s and up to 1970, which is when I started college.

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My mother was always a feminist, and she was always a very outspoken and determined feminist. She was very clear about

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her values around women. And she was very matter-of-fact but very insistent that we all see the world in that same way.

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I remember that she was a always telling us about meetings that she went to of the League of Women Voters,

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for instance, where she would stand up and defend some principle or other. It was always, you know, this way in which she wanted

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to show that fighting was important. That you couldn't just let people say or do things that were going to undermine women

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or devalue them in some way. And so I, you know, I grew up in a feminist household where the assumption was that I would

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see the world that way. And in fact, I did. But it was very much out of sync with the community around us. You know, my mother was kind of an oddity

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and in her, not so much in New York, presumably, but I had left there when I was quite young, certainly in rural Pennsylvania,

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she wasn't the norm. She also was a businesswoman. She was an entrepreneur who started her own business when she was in her 50s.

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Prior to that, she'd been an editor. She always had been a professional person. She had only a high school degree, but she was very

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determined and self-taught and very intelligent. And so she was successful as an editor in New York.

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Had worked for actually some radical organizations there, politically radical organizations. She was very politically radical.

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So that's what I grew up with. A politically radical, very feminist home-life in a very conservative and very patriarchal broader community.

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I didn't fit in very well. When we traveled, I actually enjoyed my youth more in other countries,

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because I always felt like an outsider in other countries, but I had a reason to be an outsider there. When I was in Carlisle,

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I always felt like an outsider, but I was supposed to be a Carlislean. And it was not comfortable to feel outside and marginalized

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in my own environment. I felt fine in France. I felt fine in India. I was just a foreigner,

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but I could be as different as I wanted to be, and everybody expected it. But I do remember some very

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distinct events that took place, one in India and one in Carlisle that really highlighted for me what girls and women were facing at the time.

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The first took place in Carlisle when, I don't know how old I was, I might have been 12 years old. My brother, who was

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22 months younger than I, was my only sibling, had a paper route for our local newspaper for quite some time. And I was doing babysitting,

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which was what girls did then. And he was making more money than I was and it was a regular job and I thought I wanted to do this.

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It seemed to me a better way to make money. So I called the newspaper and they just flat-out told me

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that "only boys could do that job." And I remember thinking, "How bizarre." Of course, I could do that job. And I didn't fight it at the time,

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but it made a tremendous impression on me that I was being told that I couldn't do something that patently obviously I could do.

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The other experience happened in rather close proximity because it was when we lived in India and I was around 12 years old then. My father had started,

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he was on a Fulbright and had started the first American Studies research center in India, which was at Osmania University

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in Hyderabad where we were living. And he had a number of colleagues. My father was an incredibly warm and embracing person.

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He just loved people and people loved him. And he was gentle and sweet and funny and very uncritical of people around him. And, you know,

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so I had only a positive impression and he was introducing us to one of his Indian colleagues. And I remember my brother and I were

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standing next to each other and he said, My dad said, you know, "This is my daughter, Jessica." And the man shook my hand and

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said hello and he said, "Oh yes, but what I'm really interested in is your son." And I remember thinking, "Oh my God,

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he just dismissed me because I'm female. I'm nothing to him. It's my brother who interests him because he's an important figure

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simply by matter of his sex." Those are the two experiences that I think confirmed my own feminism for me. I mean, I had inherited it from mom,

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who had inherited it from her mom. My mom was always telling stories about as a child, my grandmother would dress

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my mother and my uncle up and take them to the voting booth on voting day. And they would stand out front waving signs

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saying, "Votes for Women, Votes for Women." So I had like this three generations down the line of feminists in my family.

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I didn't know my grandmother, she died the week I was born. But, so I kind of inherited this and I accepted it.

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But those experiences made it personal, made it real to me that this was my life. And what I was experiencing were people telling me that

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there were limitations because I was female and that I wasn't important because I was female. I also ended up, I mean,

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just furious about this man who dismissed me. It felt so humiliating. I remember wanting him to die, and he did die a short time afterward.

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And so it also had a dramatic effect on me because I felt as though I was young enough to feel as though I had

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somehow some effect on the man's end of life. (Laughs) Oh well. What can I say? Powerful women. [DS] He was totally wrong about you.

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[JS] He was wrong. That's right. Little did he know if he had treated me right, he could have had a long and happy life. [DS] So I guess that kind of

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encompasses my next question, which is, what was your "feminist lightbulb" moment? It sounds like you were almost born into the lightbulb moment.

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[JS] Yeah, in a way. I think that when I became activist though is probably there was, there was, and I don't know if it was

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a lightbulb moment because you're right. I was born into a situation where it was never a matter of, "Oh gee, women deserve

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attention." It was never that. But when I was in college, the, it was, I started in 1970 and it was really at the beginning of

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the Women's Movement really taking hold. And on the campus where I went to school as an undergraduate American University in DC,

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there was a lot of political action taking place. Of course, the war was going on, and because we were in DC,

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many of the national and international stories were based around the events that took place right in the city

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where I was at school. So there were a lot of demonstrations and protests, and I became very active

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in the anti-war movement at the time. And, you know, I never experienced what many people have, the whole story about

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how women were dismissed in the anti-war movement, which I'm sure was absolutely accurate. That wasn't my experience so much.

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I was also involved in non-violence training and was an active trainer is civil disobedience, so that people would come

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from other schools and campuses to DC to protest. And they will go through this training on how to respond.

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And I was one of the trainers. But at the same time, the local Women's Movement was starting, what turned out to be the first

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rape crisis center in America, was started in DC. And the organizers came to campus and I attended the meeting where

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they were trying to inform us and get us involved in helping to begin this organization. And I remember there being

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a very pointed discussion about what role, if any, men could play in this newly developing anti-violence

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toward women movement. And of course, I'd been involved in anti-violence work. >> And I've been

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involved in anti-violence work with men around the war, and I remember feeling very conflicted about it.

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(Phone rings) I'm sorry, that's my phone. Should I pick it up or just ignore it? It's going to go on and on. It's probably Pat. (Interviewer answers phone.)

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Is it Pat? [DS] She is. [JS] Pat, I'm being interviewed at the moment. [DS] Turn the lights on in the car.

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[JS] Turn the lights on? Oh, okay. I know why. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

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Okay. We're trying to get moisture out of the headlight. He's trying to sell his car.

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[DS] Oh really. [JS] Yeah. So if you know anybody who wants an old BMW tell them to come see us. Uh-huh.

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Okay. [DS] All right. [JS] So I remember feeling really conflicted about this notion of not including men

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because I'd always assumed, you know my father was very supportive of women and women's issues. You know, it was never an issue

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in our household. The men that I'd worked with in the anti-violence movement, I felt were respectful

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and saw me as an equal. So I was a little taken aback by it was my first personal exposure to a kind of separatist perspective.

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And rather than have an "Aha" moment about "Ah! we need feminism" it was more an "Aha" moment about trying to think about what feminism is and,

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and what it means to be involved in it. Why would we not include men? I mean, I understand

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what the arguments were. I mean, I do now. At the time, I think I had to really grapple with that. So I think that was for me a

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moment in my self-consciousness as a feminist, where I had to really start thinking about what

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the movement's goals were and how best to accomplish them. And then more or less ironically, I guess I ended up being very involved

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in anti-violence toward women. That essentially was how I ended up building a career. But at that time,

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that was in the future, I wasn't aware of it. But that particular group of people, I still very distinctly

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remember the woman who led it, who led the discussion and, and being just really taken aback about what this was all about,

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and how I felt about it and where I felt I fit into the understanding that she had. [DS] The next question is were you...

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and you kind of answered this one too, Were you active in the early Women's Movement? And how do you think this shaped

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your involvement with the Women's Studies department? Or the program. [JS] I was really active in the early Women's Movement. I participated in

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a number of Pro-Choice activities. I was that was one of the issues that my mother was just adamant about. I remember when I was a teenager,

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she took me aside and a neighbor's daughter had recently gotten pregnant. And I remember my mother saying to me

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that if I was going to be sexually active, that she wanted me to go right to the doctor and make sure that I had birth control pills

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and if I ever felt as though I, if I ever got pregnant and I could certainly have an abortion,

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it would be absolutely fine. I mean, I remember this kind of determined perspective she had.

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I think she wanted me to get an education more than she had had, and I think it was one of her ways of encouraging me to do that.

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So, you know, there were marches in later years that I went on with my mother, myself and my daughter at the time.

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You know, these kind of generational thing about choice. But in college, I was definitely very Pro-Choice.

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I had an abortion when I was in college. I felt as though it was absolutely the right thing to do. I did tell my parents about it.

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They actually paid for it. I mean, it was not an issue. They never held it against me or, you know, felt that

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I had done something wrong. It was in fact a failure of the Dalkon Shield. I was using an IUD and I was in

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the initial, There was a class-action lawsuit and I was in the initial lawsuit and when I got a payout from it,

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I gave all my funds that they gave me to Planned Parenthood, as a kind of a thank-you. So yeah, I mean, I think that

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I was involved in the Pro-Choice stuff. Then when I left DC, I graduated and worked there for a few years,

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not specifically in feminist work. But when I left DC, I moved to Washington State, to Olympia, which is

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the state capitol of Washington. A lot of political activity takes place in Olympia. And when I arrived,

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my thought was the first thing I was going to do was go to the local office of NOW and volunteer so that I could meet other feminist women

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and find out what was happening in that community so that I could really get engaged. And I think that was

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probably the best move I ever made in my life, because I went to the office of NOW. There was a volunteer president. Her name is Leslie Owen.

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And I remember very distinctly she said to me, "Well, you could volunteer for now, but really, I think you ought to consider volunteering

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for the Rape Crisis Center." And I thought, "Oh, okay." I mean, I'd never really done anything related to it, but she was suggesting it and I

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figured I'd go to a meeting and figure out what it was about. And I spent the rest of my life up to and including now, involved in that work.

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So if I hadn't gone to her, I don't know what shape my life would have taken, but it's certainly,

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I've thanked Leslie many, many times. I'm still in touch with her. I'm going to be seeing her shortly when I moved back to Washington.

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She's gone on to do wonderful work there. She went on to get a law degree and does a lot of work around women's rights and women's issues.

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But that changed everything. So that and it was still the early years, in some senses. This would have been still in the 70s.

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Being involved in the rape crisis movement then was one of the more activist and radical places you could be.

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It was a movement that was absolutely political. It wasn't, it had as a goal, obviously to help women

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who had been sexually assaulted. But it also had as a primary goal, overturning the relationships of men and women, overturning the political structures that

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supported violence against women, changing the laws, changing social attitudes, changing people's reality about how they viewed their bodies,

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and men and women, and how those bodies relate to each other. So it was explicitly political and it was great work. It was really amazing work.

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We did some incredible things back then. And I also, while I was there, became involved. I was a registered lobbyist for

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the National Abortion Rights Action League. I used to go up to Capitol Hill in Olympia and lobby on behalf of abortion rights

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up through my pregnancy with my daughter. I always loved doing it when I was very pregnant. I thought that was

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one of the best statements I could make. So it was great. [DS] What relationship do you see between feminist advocacy and academics? [JS] Between feminist advocacy and academics?

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I think academics as a whole is a different question. But Women's Studies itself was created out of

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this very activist structure. It was activist women who began to question why women weren't being included in traditional disciplines

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on college campuses. And began to lobby for courses related to women, for changing courses so

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that they weren't as solely about men. And then ultimately for creating actual academic programs that became Women's Studies.

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So we're a discipline or interdiscipline that is a direct outgrowth of the feminist desire to see

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activism put into academic, put into an academic environment. Now, to some extent being as part of a very ancient,

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and rather I would say defined organizational structure as a college or university means that you

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give up some things in the process of doing that. For instance, we can't as a department, take explicit political positions on issues.

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We can teach about the range of political positions. We can discuss how certain groups of people may benefit or

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suffer from the consequences of political decisions. But we can't, as a department be ourselves, articulate about political positions in the way that,

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in the sense that we can't support a particular one over another. So you give up something of your activist life when you

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decide to live it as an academic, at least, I mean, obviously individually we can do whatever we want.

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But as a representative of the institution, there are some barriers that we can't cross and that, you know, and I understand the reasons for that.

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So it's not always a perfect mix. But what I think we can do, and what I think we do really well is provide an opportunity for

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students to get enough information and to question what information is presented to them so that when they do go out into the community,

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they are not sheep. We want them to be able to be activists as much as they want to be activists.

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We want them to be able to speak up for, for whatever positions they hold dear. You know, we've had quite a few students go through Women's Studies who are,

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for instance, Pro-Life as opposed to Pro-Choice. And many of them may be activist in that realm.

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So we aren't churning out people with a particular viewpoint. What I hope we do is we churn out people who can speak

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up for what they believe. It may not always be my personal choice, but that's not, we're not a training program, right?

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We're here to expand their capacity to analyze and understand their world. And I think we're really

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effective at doing that. And in so much as that helps to create good advocates, I think that that's a good thing.

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Now, on the other hand, we're actually right now with the Domestic Violence Prevention and Services program housed in Women's Studies.

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That is in some ways training people to be systems advocates. Again, we're not teaching them to take a particular position,

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but that's a more explicitly connected program to advocacy than what we have done in the past.

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[DS] I hadn't thought of it that way. What brought you to Delaware? [JS] My parents were elderly and getting sick, and I was living on the West Coast in Olympia,

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my brother was living in San Francisco. I had just had my first child, their only grandchild, and I felt it

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incumbent on me to be within calling range. So I gave up my position at the Rape Crisis Center. It by then it had become

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a combined Rape Crisis and Battered Women's Shelter. I had worked with the interim board to

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create that, and applied for a new position in that new organization, and was hired. I should say that I had started out

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volunteering for the Rape Crisis Center, but after a year of doing volunteer work, I was then hired into a position there, full-time.

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And then when it went through this transformation, was rehired in the new organization. So I left my job there

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and decided that I would go back to graduate school. That this would be a convenient break to take that I would

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wherever we landed, and why we wanted to do a 2-hour radius around where my parents lived. That wherever I landed, I'd go to

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whatever local university was available and get a degree that would enhance my capacity to work on issues of violence against women.

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When I ended up in Delaware and we ended up in the state because my husband got a job here. We weren't looking to live in Delaware,

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but that's where the job was. I was thinking between the University of Delaware and Temple, and at the time

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the commute to the University of Delaware with a very young baby just seemed much easier than going into Philadelphia several times a week.

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So I applied to the Sociology department here, because it was the closest thing. I probably would've gone to a social work school

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if I had been closer to one. I'm glad I didn't because in... I had never taken a Sociology course as an undergraduate.

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I actually didn't know anything about the discipline other than it was focused on society and I wanted to change social reality.

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So why not? I would love to take a look at whatever I wrote in my application. I'm sure

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it was completely bizarre. For some reason they accepted me, and I think having... I had some excellent professors in

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the Master's program and they had a sub-specialty in the Sociology of Sex and Gender, which is where I focused my attention.

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And I came out of there with a lot of skills that I didn't have before I went in, especially in terms of analyzing

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and understanding material that other scholars were printing. The Rape Crisis movement when I was working in it full-time,

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it was so demanding and exhausting. And there was so much pressure, very little financial support, but tremendous need that nobody had the time

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to write what they were experiencing or analyze it. And it was a grassroots movement. It was not,

00:28:15.260 - 00:28:22.950

It was not academics and scholars who were doing the work. So having been through that experience and then having

00:28:22.950 - 00:28:32.330

the privilege to become more academically-focused. It enabled me to put those two disparate pieces

00:28:32.330 - 00:28:42.890

together and find a way to connect them, that for me has been really helpful and I think it's made me more effective in the work I do.

00:28:42.890 - 00:28:54.870

[DS] Do you feel that that kind of happenstance of you being able to put those two together is what ultimately led to the DVPS program? [JS] Oh absolutely. Absolutely.

00:28:54.870 - 00:29:06.290

When the Domestic Violence Prevention Services program, I mean, it started by... Well after I came here, when I was in graduate school,

00:29:06.290 - 00:29:16.100

another person who started the same time that I did was Carol Post. We met at our first class and she and I were the only two adult returning students

00:29:16.100 - 00:29:26.780

in the Master's program in that year. We both had children the same age. We each had one child who was just a year old by the time classes

00:29:26.780 - 00:29:38.030

started and we became very good friends. We both had an interest in feminist issues and women's issues. They called us Tweedledee and

00:29:38.030 - 00:29:46.460

Tweedledum because we were kind of inseparable for a long time. And she, you know, she and I were active in

00:29:46.460 - 00:29:55.100

the community in a variety of organizations that were working on issues of violence against women. So we actually dreamed up starting

00:29:55.100 - 00:30:03.950

the coalition in a car on the way back from a conference in DC. We were the only state in the country that didn't have a coalition.

00:30:03.950 - 00:30:12.620

And so it wasn't that the idea was new. The idea had been recycled a 1,000 times. But Delaware didn't have it, and we thought that that was outrageous,

00:30:12.620 - 00:30:19.100

we were actually missing out on federal dollars that could come into Delaware to help deal with issues of violence against women.

00:30:19.100 - 00:30:25.250

And so I remember sitting in the car and saying to each other, "Okay, let's call together so-and-so and so-and-so." We made up a list of

00:30:25.250 - 00:30:32.180

people and let's get this thing moving. And you know, it's much more complicated than that. There were a series of

00:30:32.180 - 00:30:39.620

actually 3 different organizations that we ended up working to get started. One of them still continues the Domestic Violence

00:30:39.620 - 00:30:47.180

Advocacy program in Family Court is one that she and I worked to create and the coalition, of course.

00:30:47.180 - 00:30:56.510

And then she got hired as the Executive Director of that coalition. And she was approached these many, many, many years later by Verizon,

00:30:56.510 - 00:31:02.780

who as a company takes domestic violence as one of the issues they want to address. They have this program where you

00:31:02.780 - 00:31:10.370

recycle telephones and they make them available to potential victims of crime so that they can call 9-1-1. And so as a result

00:31:10.370 - 00:31:20.750

of that connection with the telephone, they're interested in working on domestic violence issues. And somebody on their foundation board was

00:31:20.750 - 00:31:25.920

aware that there was a appropriate somewhere at Rutgers completely different from the one we ended up creating,

00:31:25.920 - 00:31:34.400

it really bears almost no resemblance at all. But they knew that there was a university program and they were wondering if, to Carol, if there

00:31:34.400 - 00:31:40.130

was somebody at the University of Delaware who they might talk to about funding something like this.

00:31:40.130 - 00:31:46.980

And Carol said, "Oh, yes, of course, I know exactly who that would be." And she and I have breakfast together every month.

00:31:46.980 - 00:31:59.630

And at the next breakfast we discussed it. By the time breakfast was over, we had decided we were doing it. And it took about 2 months or so

00:31:59.630 - 00:32:10.050

to write up the grant and submit it. And at the time I said to her, "You know, I'm not going to be doing this work that much longer

00:32:10.050 - 00:32:16.040

at Delaware." I knew that retirement was going to be coming for me and I said to her that "For me,

00:32:16.040 - 00:32:25.700

this was a way of bringing it back full circle." That my roots in advocacy, were now going to be translated through

00:32:25.700 - 00:32:31.850

an academic program back into actually creating advocates in the community. And it felt to me like

00:32:31.850 - 00:32:45.390

the absolutely right closure for how my career had the trajectory that it had taken. It just felt absolutely right. So yeah, yeah, it was very much connected.

00:32:45.390 - 00:33:00.180

[DS] When did you start working at the University? And in what capacity? I know it was around 1986 or 1987. [JS] Yeah, I think it was about 1986.

00:33:00.180 - 00:33:15.710

And I taught as an adjunct. I was already a graduate student in the Sociology program that started in 1985. And about a year later, Sandra Harding,

00:33:15.710 - 00:33:22.340

who was directing Women's Studies at the time, invited me to her office. She had heard, I guess,

00:33:22.340 - 00:33:29.360

about the work that I had been doing in rape crisis and battered women. And she asked if I could

00:33:29.360 - 00:33:37.610

develop a course on Violence Against Women for Women's Studies. And I was thrilled, and I did. And it was of course,

00:33:37.610 - 00:33:47.890

the first college course I'd taught. And I think probably the first time, I was less academic and more activist than I became over time.

00:33:47.890 - 00:33:56.240

But, it was a fabulous experience and it led to all sorts of other things. But at first it was as an adjunct. At the time, around

00:33:56.240 - 00:34:06.580

the same time I met Kathy Turkel, who was then program coordinator for what was the Women's Studies program. And I remember saying to Carol,

00:34:06.580 - 00:34:15.770

"If she ever leaves that job, I want it." And the next year, she left it and I applied. And got it. So yeah, it was first as an adjunct

00:34:15.770 - 00:34:23.850

and then I was hired to be program coordinator. [DS] And I saw that there was a lot of kind of turmoil around that position as

00:34:23.850 - 00:34:40.390

the program coordinator before you took the job. There seemed to be a lot of turnover in that job And that kind of stuff. Why do you think that was? Do you know? Or was it just an evolution that made it a better job?

00:34:40.390 - 00:34:50.580

[JS] Well, I think there were actually several different things that happened. My understanding is that Kathy was the second person in that actual position.

00:34:50.580 - 00:34:59.010

The one before I think was Nancy Wingate and I'm pretty sure they called it coordinator then too. But prior to that,

00:34:59.010 - 00:35:10.070

I think that the structure of Women's Studies was really different. It had, you know, I don't even know if they

00:35:10.070 - 00:35:14.400

called it a coordinator. I don't even think they called it a director, early on. There were

00:35:14.400 - 00:35:26.960

some other formative things that were happening. We just weren't the program hadn't geled, it hadn't created a something solid that

00:35:26.960 - 00:35:35.900

you could... that looked like an academic program really yet. I think it took some effort on a lot of people's parts. There were a lot of

00:35:35.900 - 00:35:43.280

changes that happened in the early years. There were some very unfortunate circumstances around the early leadership.

00:35:43.280 - 00:35:49.930

There was a faculty member who was hired as the first, I don't even think she was called a director then. I think she was

00:35:49.930 - 00:35:56.630

she was called a coordinator. And I'm not sure what the other position might have been if there was one. But she had a faculty

00:35:56.630 - 00:36:02.960

line that was partly in Women's Studies and partly in Psychology. And she ended up taking the entire faculty line

00:36:02.960 - 00:36:13.820

to Psychology. Women's Studies lost it. And for 2 decades, at least afterwards, we had no faculty line. So there were

00:36:13.820 - 00:36:20.630

some very strange things that happened early on and they were sometimes a few steps back, but then there was always

00:36:20.630 - 00:36:25.610

momentum to push it forward. There were a lot of very strong feminists on campus. They were determined not

00:36:25.610 - 00:36:32.180

to let this thing die. And so, you know, I don't know if it was any one thing. I think there was just, I think it was

00:36:32.180 - 00:36:49.040

just the early years of shaping something new. [DS] President Trabant appointed the committee to study

00:36:49.040 - 00:36:58.640

opportunities and policies relating to women at UD, and later the Women's Studies committee, Commission on the Status of Women.

00:36:58.640 - 00:37:09.860

Who were the important allies in the administration that supported the development of the Women's Studies program? And if you can kind of elaborate on

00:37:09.860 - 00:37:17.810

what role did they play? The ones that were in play when you were, that you remember? [JS] Well, of course, what you're

00:37:17.810 - 00:37:24.680

talking about took place essentially 10 years before I came to the University. So, I heard a lot

00:37:24.680 - 00:37:34.220

about this as historical fact, but I wasn't present for it. When I came, I can tell you that the major players were

00:37:34.220 - 00:37:41.180

some of the players who were, who had been on campus for 10 years. You know, one of the things that I've noticed,

00:37:41.180 - 00:37:47.870

I'm very active in this Greater Philadelphia Women's Studies consortium, organization of 13 colleges

00:37:47.870 - 00:38:00.320

and universities in the Greater Philadelphia area. Some of them large and, you know, highly visible, some of them small and highly visible.

00:38:00.320 - 00:38:08.960

You know, Bryn Mawr, Swarthmore, Haverford, Temple, Drexel. You know a lot of of the names that you would recognize. Out of them,

00:38:08.960 - 00:38:20.760

I would say that we have been incredibly lucky to have had a very steady and strong core of feminist faculty on campus

00:38:20.760 - 00:38:30.530

who have lasted over a long period of time. I think that we actually have the strongest program among the 13 institutions.

00:38:30.530 - 00:38:45.690

I would say. Penn is there too, and they have a strong program also. But I would say we rival them in many ways. Organizationally among them.

00:38:46.060 - 00:38:58.550

And a lot of that can be attributed to some folks like Maggie Andersen, who TA'd for

00:38:58.550 - 00:39:07.600

in the Sociology department when I was a Master's student and she was heading up the Sociology of Sex and Gender component

00:39:07.600 - 00:39:14.660

of their degree program. Sandra Harding, who was an internationally, is an internationally recognized scholar

00:39:14.660 - 00:39:25.010

of Feminist Theory, particularly feminist science, philosophy of science. But lots of other players.

00:39:25.010 - 00:39:32.720

Marian Palley was around for a long time. Leslie Goldstein. Bonnie Scott was still here then and has gone on to be

00:39:32.720 - 00:39:43.370

director of the San Diego Women's Studies program, which is a very strong one. Beth Haslett was one of the early people.

00:39:43.370 - 00:39:54.950

Barbara Kelly who is now emeritus. Lindy Geis who has passed away, but was here for a number of years. They were all still active and very engaged

00:39:54.950 - 00:40:03.890

in making sure that Women's Studies succeeded and did well. They didn't all see it the same way. You know, they had different perspectives

00:40:03.890 - 00:40:13.520

on how to best position the program politically within the structure of the University. But they all agreed

00:40:13.520 - 00:40:21.380

that this program needed to succeed. And when women came to campus to interview for jobs, they were often brought in

00:40:21.380 - 00:40:29.000

to Women's Studies, one way or another. And if they saw that there was a strong group of feminists on campus,

00:40:29.000 - 00:40:36.080

and they themselves were feminist. They might be more likely then to take a job here. So over time, it became a kind of

00:40:36.080 - 00:40:47.570

a self-fulfilling process where by virtue of the fact they were here they attracted other women to campus. And Sandra in particular,

00:40:47.570 - 00:40:57.710

was really good at sniffing out any possibility of feminism in a new person who came to campus, and then dragooning them

00:40:57.710 - 00:41:05.300

into the program in some way or another. She was really good at that. So it kept building. It kept building and growing.

00:41:05.300 - 00:41:17.420

So I think that those were, I don't think I'm missing in terms of the academic side, anybody. On the non-academic side, of course,

00:41:17.420 - 00:41:23.690

you referred to President Trabant's creation of the Commission on the Status of Women. And for quite a number of years,

00:41:23.690 - 00:41:32.870

although that's been recently disbanded, for quite a number of years, that served an important function in terms of bringing together

00:41:32.870 - 00:41:44.380

all the various parties of interest on campus. Because the commission dealt with faculty, students, staff, everybody.

00:41:44.380 - 00:41:54.590

And that was headed by Mae Carter for a long time, who was outspoken about her support of women and women's issues.

00:41:54.590 - 00:42:01.520

We had Liane Sorenson directing that Office for quite a number of years. She went on to be a State Senator

00:42:01.520 - 00:42:08.450

and left the position, but was always a strong advocate for women. And Donna Tuites who worked in that office for

00:42:08.450 - 00:42:17.450

a long time and who, you know, for whom this work has just absolutely been central to her life.

00:42:17.450 - 00:42:25.860

She's gone on to do therapy in the community, particularly with women. But that office, I think along with Women's Studies,

00:42:25.860 - 00:42:39.330

it was kind of a 1-2 whammy going on. You know, they were both visible, both relatively strong, and made the campus feel,

00:42:39.330 - 00:42:48.830

as campuses go, pretty feminist-friendly. And that's not always the case. [DKS] Did you notice any kind of

00:42:48.830 - 00:43:05.550

resistant or resistance from faculty or administration or anyone to the kind of formation of the Women's Studies program? As first a program and then now as a department,

00:43:05.550 - 00:43:16.940

have you seen much resistance to that? [JS] The overall answer to that is "no," but in saying that, there have certainly been pockets of resistance.

00:43:16.940 - 00:43:28.620

They've been so minimal and so inconsequential that, you know, it's shocking really, because almost every other campus I know about

00:43:28.620 - 00:43:35.510

has had active resistance of one sort or another. For one thing, I think we were very lucky to

00:43:35.510 - 00:43:46.370

have President Trabant at the time that we had him. He had a mother who was herself a very accomplished, non-traditional woman.

00:43:46.370 - 00:43:54.920

And I think that helped shape his understanding. He was married to somebody who taught the first course is on

00:43:54.920 - 00:44:02.270

this campus on Violence Against Women. She was herself trained, I think as a clinical psychologist. And she taught something

00:44:02.270 - 00:44:12.150

about, you know, the Psychology of Gender Violence, or Violence Against Women, or something like. I forget the exact title, but she taught it for a number of years.

00:44:12.150 - 00:44:21.310

While I was still here, she was continuing to teach it. Jerry Trabant. And we've never been in a position where

00:44:21.310 - 00:44:32.810

we've been threatened. At all. And I don't want to say that lightly. I mean there have certainly been small skirmishes around things like

00:44:32.810 - 00:44:41.900

whether women should count as a multicultural category. And I understand the arguments on both sides.

00:44:41.900 - 00:44:49.020

There are legitimate arguments. There is also, frankly, just an anti-feminist argument. They're just simply are not interested in women.

00:44:49.020 - 00:44:56.970

And a few of those people have popped up but they get squelched. There's a stronger, larger, reasonable community

00:44:56.970 - 00:45:07.380

that understands the bigger issues. We've had provosts, from time to time who have not been interested in seeing us departmentalize, for instance.

00:45:07.380 - 00:45:14.780

And then we have provosts who have, and who have moved us along. We've had deans who have been more or less supportive.

00:45:14.780 - 00:45:26.910

But overall, our economic base has been supported. Our capacity to grow faculty has been supported.

00:45:26.910 - 00:45:34.610

Our physical surroundings have been improved over time. You know, if you look at it as a trajectory,

00:45:34.610 - 00:45:54.610

it goes straight up. And there might be little tweaks here and there from some voice saying, "Oh, I don't..." But they get squelched.

00:45:54.610 - 00:46:12.450

[DKS] Was there any question about input from students in program policy-making? Did student have a say in it? [JS] Program policymaking. You know, I almost want to say, we don't really have policies.

00:46:12.450 - 00:46:21.740

It's not, we don't have official policies in that sense. The ways in which we engage students in Women's Studies

00:46:21.740 - 00:46:29.980

itself and the development of it. For instance, a year and a half ago, we held a retreat in which

00:46:29.980 - 00:46:38.300

we made some very important decisions about changing the name of the department, about our goals for the future, rewriting our mission statement,

00:46:38.300 - 00:46:48.290

getting very clear about where we see ourselves 5 and 10 years down the line. And in preparation for that, we held a series of

00:46:48.290 - 00:46:57.900

focus sessions with students, sometimes targeting particular interests areas like our SGST minors had their own focus session,

00:46:57.900 - 00:47:10.440

but we had majors as focus, minors as focus. And we took very seriously the results of those sessions in our retreat discussion,

00:47:10.440 - 00:47:18.990

in understanding how students see us, and what they want from us, and what they would like to see us doing. So I think the

00:47:18.990 - 00:47:30.100

ways in which we've recently involved students have been very important in shaping this whole new trajectory that we're on. You know, in a more general sense,

00:47:30.100 - 00:47:39.580

we spent a lot of time. You know, I don't have the experience of other departments, but my sense from doing advisement,

00:47:39.580 - 00:47:50.220

is that we spend an unusual amount of time talking individually with students, having discussion groups with students as part of our class work,

00:47:50.220 - 00:47:57.950

making sure that we hear the voices of students and that we encourage their voices. So there's a lot

00:47:57.950 - 00:48:05.210

of discussion in our faculty meetings, informally among the faculty about what we're hearing from them, what they want from us.

00:48:05.210 - 00:48:14.660

They seem to, for the most part, I would say that many of them feel as though we have an open door and if they

00:48:14.660 - 00:48:21.980

have interests or issues or concerns, they can come to us. That's a rather passive position from us, the focus groups, obviously were much more active.

00:48:21.980 - 00:48:31.640

We sought out their response. But I also think that they are active and searching us out when they... I certainly hear it as Associate Chair.

00:48:31.640 - 00:48:38.390

I've heard positive and negative and they're not shy about telling us when they don't like something that's

00:48:38.390 - 00:48:45.810

happening and we try it. We really try hard to keep our ear to the ground, but we don't have

00:48:45.810 - 00:48:58.070

an official mechanism that brings students routinely into the decision-making process. [DKS] Would you think it would be normal,

00:48:58.070 - 00:49:12.830

or the status quo, for most departments to have input from students? [JS] No. I think that it would be, [DKS] It's not typical. [JS] Yeah. I think it would be very unusual for that.

00:49:12.830 - 00:49:22.460

And I think that you might even have a lot of resistance, even among some of our more democratic thinking faculty if we weren't,

00:49:22.460 - 00:49:30.050

for instance, to have them have a decision-making voice in our faculty meeting. I mean, it is a faculty meeting.

00:49:30.050 - 00:49:38.230

You know, there are a lot of ways in which students can have a voice on campus. And in some ways they have a free-er voice than anybody.

00:49:38.230 - 00:49:46.280

They're the "paying customer," as they are referred to today, which actually drives me nuts, but they're in a position

00:49:46.280 - 00:49:55.770

where they can say anything. And, you know, the rest of us have some constraints, some professional constraints.

00:49:55.770 - 00:50:04.220

Sometimes it's an interesting discussion because you can say to students, "Well, you know, if that issue concerns you greatly,

00:50:04.220 - 00:50:11.240

you're the one that has the strongest voice." And you can alert them to the fact. We got the morning-after pill

00:50:11.240 - 00:50:19.560

on campus because a group of students, that was then the student caucus on the Commission on the Status of Women, which has now disbanded,

00:50:19.560 - 00:50:29.870

maybe in part because of the power that was utilized in some circumstances. But we had, the student caucus brought the morning-after pill to campus,

00:50:29.870 - 00:50:40.490

essentially forced the Student Health Service, which was resistant, by a variety of tactics and

00:50:40.490 - 00:50:50.460

efforts over the period of a year or so. So, you know, they really can have a dramatic and strong voice if they pull together and manage it well.

00:50:50.770 - 00:51:01.640

[DKS] We talked a little bit about the Women's Movement in the 1970s and that was about the time that the program started in conjunction with that.

00:51:01.640 - 00:51:15.020

I know we've talked a little bit about this, but do you see any, I mean obviously the domestic violence is one specific link between the Women's Movement,

00:51:15.020 - 00:51:25.590

I would say, and the Women's Studies program at the University. Do you see any other links between early activism and what has been taught today?

00:51:25.590 - 00:51:34.460

[JS] Well, let me... [DKS] Or maybe you don't? [JS] Let me clarify something a little bit because one of the things that excited Carol and me when we

00:51:34.460 - 00:51:47.060

were thinking about how we would shape something for the Verizon grant for creating the Domestic Violence Program. Was that in actuality,

00:51:47.060 - 00:51:54.620

the domestic violence program, while it was originally very much grassroots and activists, has become professionalized and de-politicized.

00:51:54.620 - 00:52:01.250

And that's true of sexual assault programs too, across the country. When I was involved with them, they were all about politics.

00:52:01.250 - 00:52:07.770

They are not about that anymore. They're about social work, about doing social good. That's wonderful.

00:52:07.770 - 00:52:15.840

And I'm glad that they do that. I'm not glad that they've lost the piece that has to do with activism. So in part,

00:52:15.840 - 00:52:27.110

what we wanted to do was to shape a community of young activists who would be critical of how that works.

00:52:27.110 - 00:52:34.430

You know, we have a little political subtext going on ourselves. So I would say that we're not connected so much to what's

00:52:34.430 - 00:52:43.060

already an activist community out there we're trying to create one. And re-politicize work that has become

00:52:43.060 - 00:52:50.690

de-politicized. [DKS] That's an interesting take on it. [JS] So, you know I'm being truthful with you. That's my agenda. So that's kind of

00:52:50.690 - 00:52:59.630

where that's going. In terms of other ways in which we connect with activism. We, there are a lot of...

00:52:59.630 - 00:53:08.240

Any women's group in the area knows about us and reaches out to us, from time to time. Or any group that is involved with,

00:53:08.240 - 00:53:18.620

or concerned with issues affecting women. So you know, we hear from Planned Parenthood from time to time, and have occasionally

00:53:18.620 - 00:53:30.070

co-sponsored some activities as long as again, we stay on a more neutral side of the political positions. We've worked with

00:53:30.070 - 00:53:40.670

You know, very recently we helped to co-sponsor a film shown at Theater N, on dealing with acid attacks

00:53:40.670 - 00:53:47.000

on women in Pakistan. Working with the American Pakistani Friendship Committee. You know,

00:53:47.000 - 00:53:56.810

not ordinarily a feminist organization, but an organization that is concerned about the treatment of women in these horrific circumstances and

00:53:56.810 - 00:54:04.460

wanted to align with us, and ask us for some support, at least in terms of advertising and promoting the event.

00:54:04.460 - 00:54:13.400

So, you know, I think that when an issue comes forward, or a group comes forward, and it's appropriate for us to be

00:54:13.400 - 00:54:23.790

engaged because they're presenting something that's of educational and intellectual value to the community at large.

00:54:23.860 - 00:54:35.060

We very much get involve with them, but only in the appropriate sense of being an academic department and helping to

00:54:35.060 - 00:54:53.290

promote events that provide educational or intellectual growth overall. [DKS] How did... this was something that you may know about. How did Women's Studies get

00:54:53.290 - 00:55:04.530

the 2 half-time faculty hires directly into Women's Studies in 1986? Were you here then? When that happened? [JS] I was here right around the time

00:55:04.530 - 00:55:11.010

when that was happening. Although I would have to go back and look at the record to clarify exactly what happened when.

00:55:11.010 - 00:55:24.650

I'll tell you what it was like when I came on. When Kathy left the position that I then got, she was hired into

00:55:24.650 - 00:55:34.640

a kind of position that had already been set up for Sue Cherrin. So Sue Cherrin was already working half-time with 2 tied together S-contracts.

00:55:34.640 - 00:55:43.010

We call them tied together. They were, as I recall, I don't think they had any benefits initially and it was just 2 S-contracts

00:55:43.010 - 00:55:55.460

per semester for Sue. 2 S-contracts per semester for Kathy. And we called them part-time temporary workers because there

00:55:55.460 - 00:56:05.100

were no long-term commitments that could be made. It was Sandra's way of kind of massaging it as a position,

00:56:05.100 - 00:56:19.310

kind of creating them into being positions. Around the time that I was hired, which was actually in 1988. So I was here

00:56:19.310 - 00:56:32.720

teaching as an adjunct in 1986. But wasn't hired into the position until 1988. You know, I can't remember now whether this was under Sandra

00:56:32.720 - 00:56:39.280

or a few years later under Marian's first term. I think was under Sandra, that they were made

00:56:39.280 - 00:56:47.270

more officially part-time positions. And I think they were at that point able to get part-time benefits from them.

00:56:47.270 - 00:56:56.420

And then there was this long series of efforts. It became a point of contention, or at least discussion, each time we

00:56:56.420 - 00:57:10.350

had to hire a new or appoint rather, I should say, a new director of the program. How that person perceived and wanted to handle the part-time faculty.

00:57:10.350 - 00:57:23.060

The part-time faculty were determined to have their positions made full-time, regularized and ongoing. And there was struggle about that.

00:57:23.060 - 00:57:32.560

That wasn't, not every director felt that they wanted to see that happen. I think for some of them, they dreamed about having

00:57:32.560 - 00:57:43.550

regular faculty hires, tenure-track hires, rather than these kind of pulled together positions. But other directors felt very

00:57:43.550 - 00:57:49.430

strongly that their work should be recognized, that the program was really built on their efforts.

00:57:49.430 - 00:58:00.230

That without having some sort of continuity of teaching capacity, even at the introductory level, that we just didn't really have a program.

00:58:00.230 - 00:58:06.470

We would just be depending on everything else. Eventually we were able to get a third one of those positions.

00:58:06.470 - 00:58:17.900

The initial person in it might have been Martha Zingo, then Laura O'Toole, then Marie Laberge. And over a period of time,

00:58:17.900 - 00:58:25.460

I think under Marian Palley, they were able to increase it to a three-quarter position, which I think then gave them

00:58:25.460 - 00:58:38.840

full-time benefits. And then eventually they were able to call them continuing, non-tenure track positions, which are regularized and have

00:58:38.840 - 00:58:49.160

real continuity and the option for promotion and a variety of other things. But it was hard. It was hard to get

00:58:49.160 - 00:58:55.430

the momentum behind it because the directors have different perceptions about what should happen. The faculty for a long time was very,

00:58:55.430 - 00:59:03.000

very demoralized about this because there wasn't much movement taking place. They felt very unappreciated and devalued.

00:59:03.000 - 00:59:13.010

And there was, there were a period of years when it was painful to work with people who were so really depressed and

00:59:13.010 - 00:59:27.770

angry about their working conditions. But ultimately, after a long struggle, I would say that that was where our biggest struggle was

00:59:27.770 - 00:59:35.450

internally in terms of development was the handling of those lines, those positions. [DKS] That's interesting because it seems like

00:59:35.450 - 00:59:47.750

something that women face a lot when getting hired into almost any type of position that employers in general don't want to give out benefits.

00:59:47.750 - 00:59:58.880

They don't want to cost themselves more money. It seems like the women are always on the bad end of the stick on this. So it's kind of interesting that

00:59:58.880 - 01:00:15.390

even in Women's Studies, had women directors almost acting like, you know, the men dominating the hiring struggle. [JS] I think they would say this and I,

01:00:15.390 - 01:00:21.830

they actually don't want to name names so much, but the one director who I remember feeling rather

01:00:21.830 - 01:00:34.520

firmly about this, was determined about two things. First of all, she felt as though Kathy and Sue were doing themselves a disservice by settling for this.

01:00:34.520 - 01:00:40.910

She thought that these should be stepping stones to regular faculty positions. They both had PhDs, they should be on the market,

01:00:40.910 - 01:00:48.050

and they should get regular faculty positions with tenure line. Okay? So she didn't see that as...

01:00:48.050 - 01:00:57.890

now they saw it completely differently. They felt that she was dismissive of them and preventing their capacity to move forward. But she didn't see that that

01:00:57.890 - 01:01:04.320

was going to be forthcoming. And she saw those as kind of dead-end jobs because they're not tenure-track lines.

01:01:04.320 - 01:01:16.640

So there was that tension. They were seeing it different ways. There was also... You know this was not in such economically rough times.

01:01:16.640 - 01:01:26.790

So it wasn't so much about not giving them benefits at the time, as I think it was. Do you grow a program

01:01:26.790 - 01:01:34.700

on non-tenure track faculty? Or do you grow toward a department by getting tenured lines? Now of course,

01:01:34.700 - 01:01:42.050

if you're going to get tenured lines, it's going to dump them out in the cold. And so this ongoing tension was about are your positions even going to be

01:01:42.050 - 01:01:52.340

kept and are they valued? The reality is you can't grow a department on only non-tenure track lines. It wasn't until we got

01:01:52.340 - 00:00:00.000

tenure track lines that we were able to departmentalize. We could have never done it without that. I think that we did right by

00:00:00.000 - 01:02:08.690

Kathy's and Sue's positions. I understood the argument on the other side of that perspective. I don't think it was so

01:02:08.690 - 01:02:15.130

much an anti-feminist argument, but Kathy and Sue would tell you a completely different story because it was very personal for them

01:02:15.130 - 01:02:23.270

and they see it differently than I do. I mean, it's just... It was not pleasant times. Let me tell you,

01:02:23.270 - 01:02:31.550

it was really, it was really rough. It was really rough, but I'm not sure that it was specifically about that. Now these days it

01:02:31.550 - 01:02:38.360

is specifically about that interestingly enough, in the sense that colleges and universities across the country

01:02:38.360 - 01:02:46.580

are now being taught. I want to say that it's over half the faculty now are in these odd positions

01:02:46.580 - 01:02:53.690

that aren't tenured. And they may be adjunct, they may be part-time, they may be continuing non-tenure track or whatever they call them

01:02:53.690 - 01:03:01.700

in different institutions. And those positions are held primarily by women. Lo and behold, the undervalued,

01:03:01.700 - 01:03:13.190

the underpaid, and the marginalized. Who are they? There once again, they're women. So there is something to what you say. I think that if you look at

01:03:13.190 - 01:03:21.860

any particular situation into turns out to be more complex than that simple explanation will allow. And I think in our case it was more complex.

01:03:21.860 - 01:03:27.940

I think we had a director who was determined to see us get tenured faculty lines if we got anything,

01:03:27.940 - 01:03:36.530

and was determined to see 2 capable PhDs out on the market getting themselves into jobs where they were going to be able to be promoted

01:03:36.530 - 01:03:46.880

and not at a dead-end. What she saw as a dead-end position. It was tough. [DKS] Very interesting. Yeah, the two sides of every story.

01:03:46.880 - 01:03:58.610

[JS] Mm hm. [DKS] Women's Studies, like many other fields, has been a challenged to address the diversity of

01:03:58.610 - 01:04:07.490

women's experiences in a variety of ways. How do you think these debates have influenced Women's Studies here at University of Delaware? And you talked a little bit about those.

01:04:07.490 - 01:04:26.120

About having the Pro-Choice people, graduate through Women's Studies, and the Pro-Life people, as well. So you can't really take sides. You know, it's almost as if feminism

01:04:26.120 - 01:04:37.040

is distinct to each woman. So how do you deal with that? How have you tried to address that with the courses or even just the way the department works?

01:04:37.040 - 01:04:43.940

[JS] It's a very interesting question because there are also Feminist Studies departments. And we're not that.

01:04:43.940 - 01:04:53.840

We're a Women's Studies department, just as there are Gender Studies departments. And now we're becoming a Women... And we are now as of a couple weeks ago,

01:04:53.840 - 01:05:03.700

a Women and Gender Studies department. Those names actually mean something, although sometimes they're chosen for political reasons,

01:05:03.700 - 01:05:16.990

having less to do with how the department sees itself and more to do with how it is seen by others institutionally. In our case, I think

01:05:16.990 - 01:05:26.890

we've been pretty deliberate. So what does that mean in terms of how we engage these broader questions in the culture at large.

01:05:26.890 - 01:05:38.140

I have seen our curriculum change dramatically over the 20, what, 25 years. Almost. Well that I've been teaching here,

01:05:38.140 - 01:05:51.980

it's been at least 25 years, 24 years, I guess in this position. 25 or 26 teaching. As new issues come to the surface

01:05:51.980 - 01:06:00.350

and fight their way to the surface for attention both in the society and in terms of scholarship that other people are doing.

01:06:00.350 - 01:06:11.190

I think we've done a really good job of incorporating new material, new courses. We're... We've been in a growth spurt really forever.

01:06:11.190 - 01:06:19.150

I mean, we just have grown. It's wonderful. And that gives us a capacity to broaden and deepen

01:06:19.150 - 01:06:28.080

our curriculum in some really important ways. So, you know, initially we taught very little, for instance,

01:06:28.080 - 01:06:37.370

in the area of LGBT studies, but we now host a Sexualities and Gender Studies minor. LGBT issues are

01:06:37.370 - 01:06:49.890

woven into the core of the curriculum in every course that we can work to make that happen, which is virtually every course.

01:06:49.890 - 01:06:58.250

To some more or lesser extent. Race is another issue. In the 1970s, there were tremendous turmoil and

01:06:58.250 - 01:07:11.470

the Women's Movement nationally about how women of color were or were not being addressed and included. And I think that our department has taken

01:07:11.470 - 01:07:20.870

a very proactive stand on dealing with issues of race and ethnicity. A number of courses that are very specifically focused there.

01:07:20.870 - 01:07:27.170

A number of years ago, I did an analysis of our curriculum because I was determined that we might be able to have

01:07:27.170 - 01:07:33.890

some concentrations within Women's Studies. We had grown to the point where we had enough offerings. And I was able to figure out that

01:07:33.890 - 01:07:45.950

we could, at that time, float 3 different concentrations. One on Race and Ethnicity, one on sexuality, as Sexuality and Gender.

01:07:45.950 - 01:07:59.670

(Phone rings) And there goes my phone again! Should I keep talking at this thing. [DKS] Karen Rosenberg. [JS] Tell her I'm-- Karen, I'm still being interviewed!

01:07:59.670 - 01:08:19.130

[DKS] Women and Gender Studies. This is Donna. Jessica is... We're still in our interview. So, did you want her to call you back? Okay great. All right, thanks. Bye. She's at home. [JS] She's home. [JS] Okay. [DKS] Excuse me running across the line.

01:08:19.130 - 01:08:30.770

[JS] So the third was international global issues. And at the time we had a director who literally said to me that it would be over her dead body,

01:08:30.770 - 01:08:41.030

that we would focus on Sexuality and Gender. [DKS] Wow. [JS] Okay, there we go for and she wasn't as interested in Race and Ethnicity,

01:08:41.030 - 01:08:53.450

but global issues were of greater interest. So we initiated that concentration, but that was a number of years ago and we were already

01:08:53.450 - 01:09:04.220

offering enough courses to focus to have a concentration in Race and Gender and in Sexuality Studies. So that's something that we embraced early

01:09:04.220 - 01:09:14.180

and have continued to push to the forefront. And more recently, issues of transnationalism have, you know, just come to

01:09:14.180 - 01:09:22.920

the surface in society as a whole. And we again, are... for the first tenure-track hire that we had total control over.

01:09:22.920 - 01:09:30.440

Because the other 2 tenure positions we had were given to us after the fact. We shaped that job announcement

01:09:30.440 - 01:09:37.720

around transnationalisms. I mean, that was really important to us and that's one of the places where we see,

01:09:37.720 - 01:09:48.500

we see that as a lens through which we want to look at the entire department. So, you know, and I don't know what the next issue is on the horizon,

01:09:48.500 - 01:09:59.120

but I think we've done a really good job of staying current and even staying at the fore, moving to the forefront of

01:09:59.120 - 01:10:12.110

some of these issues as they've come along. [DKS] Okay, I saw a kind of historically, and I don't know how in sync this was, but Women's Studies

01:10:12.110 - 01:10:23.550

and Black American Studies became departments around the same time. Was there... I mean, did they come to be around the same time or...

01:10:23.550 - 01:10:30.560

I don't know, I'm just kind of interested, because it's sort of a you know, you're saying you have kind of the ability to have

01:10:30.560 - 01:10:40.160

this concentration in Race and Ethnicity, and then you have Black American Studies, Do you see any overlap between those too? [JS] There's a lot of overlap between

01:10:40.160 - 01:10:46.460

Black American Studies and Women's Studies on this campus. And we've been really active about that. If you actually look at

01:10:46.460 - 01:10:52.550

the list of our core faculty, you'll see a number of them have joint appointments with either Black Studies

01:10:52.550 - 01:10:59.070

or Latin American Studies. And if you look at Black Studies, or that in particular, I mean, Latin American Studies isn't a department.

01:10:59.070 - 01:11:04.430

But if you look at Black American Studies, you'll see that a number of their faculty have joint appointments with us.

01:11:04.430 - 01:11:15.620

And if they don't, they teach courses for us. And that has grown out of some good collaborative work that we have done since the very, very early days.

01:11:15.620 - 01:11:23.990

James Jones, who was just recently Chair of and director of Black American Studies before it departmentalized,

01:11:23.990 - 01:11:34.630

was one of the early promoters, supporters of Women's Studies on this campus. And Carol Henderson, who is currently the Chair

01:11:34.630 - 01:11:43.130

of Black American Studies, is one of our affiliated faculty members. So, you know, there's a lot of cross-pollination happening there

01:11:43.130 - 01:11:49.940

that's been very productive, I think on both ends. Black American Studies, was birthed very differently.

01:11:49.940 - 01:11:58.530

Their history and trajectory has been very different from ours. There was a legislative mandate to create a program such as theirs,

01:11:58.530 - 01:12:06.740

and funding for tenured positions in the Black American Studies program from the beginning that we never had.

01:12:06.740 - 01:12:17.310

>> So, you know, it's shaped differently. It looks different. But when it came time to departmentalize, we shared documents with each other,

01:12:17.310 - 01:12:24.170

reviewed each other's documents. I mean, it was very collaborative. We wanted to look for pointers on how we might position ourselves.

01:12:24.170 - 01:12:29.840

And, we continue to have discussions about ways in which to collaborate. Monica and I met this year

01:12:29.840 - 01:12:37.410

with Carol Henderson over lunch to have some discussions specifically along those lines. And you know,

01:12:37.420 - 01:12:44.120

when they just worked on having the diversity hires that they're now in the process of finalizing,

01:12:44.120 - 01:12:54.140

although I think they haven't been as successful as they had hoped, a number of those candidates for those positions did Women's Studies work.

01:12:54.140 - 01:13:01.220

And one of them at least would have had an appointment in Women's Studies. So, you know, there's a lot of looking out for

01:13:01.220 - 01:13:11.340

each other and being interested in how we can collaborate. [DKS] That's great because there seems to be a lot of the same maybe issues that they would face,

01:13:11.340 - 01:13:31.550

that Women's Studies has faced also. What do you think the impact of Women's Studies becoming an actual department is, was hoped to be, has been? [JS] You know, I was at a funeral on

01:13:31.550 - 01:13:44.360

Saturday this week and I ended up at a table with a lesbian couple who one of them was the granddaughter of the woman who had died.

01:13:44.360 - 01:13:55.280

And it turned out she had graduated from UD in the early 1980s. And she was excited to hear, somebody else

01:13:55.280 - 01:14:01.280

came to the table and said, "Oh, what do you do?" to me. And I said, "Well, you know, I teach in Women's Studies."

01:14:01.280 - 01:14:07.500

And her partner just went, "Women's Studies! Did you hear that?" And so they both turned to me and she said,

01:14:07.500 - 01:14:14.510

"Oh, Women's Studies, University of Delaware. I took classes in that back in the early 1980s." And I said, "Oh, that's terrific." We had a discussion.

01:14:14.510 - 01:14:20.000

She had taken a class with Kathy Turkel. Back in the day. And I said... She asked what had happened, and I said,

01:14:20.000 - 01:14:26.820

"Well, the big news for us is that we've departmentalized, and you know we're changing our name. She said, "Oh, I thought you were a department back then."

01:14:26.820 - 01:14:35.550

That happens all the time. So in terms of the visible impact of it, you know, here she was in 1980 something, thinking we were a department,

01:14:35.550 - 01:14:44.540

and we're struggling along trying to get a couple tenure lines. And I think for students, it's not going to make much difference

01:14:44.540 - 01:14:50.870

at all in terms of how they see us. We've been operating as department for so long and functioning really along those lines for so

01:14:50.870 - 01:14:59.760

long that it will make very little difference. But in terms of the University community, it's meaningful.

01:15:00.520 - 01:15:10.740

I think that, you know, it gives us a little bit more institutional strength, more visibility.

01:15:10.750 - 01:15:20.270

We get our own Chair. And for now, we're still continuing our previous arrangement as we did with directors,

01:15:20.270 - 01:15:27.920

where we have a wonderful Chair, but she's... wasn't hired directly into Women's Studies. But what we hope will happen

01:15:27.920 - 01:15:35.890

down the line is that our Chair will be a member of the Women's Studies faculty, hired into Women's Studies with

01:15:35.890 - 01:15:58.070

his or her interests fully embraced by the department. [DKS] I guess going back to what I asked you about the diversity in women's experiences,

01:15:58.070 - 01:16:08.450

Women's Studies has challenged... has the challenge to address that diversity of experiences in a variety of ways.

01:16:08.450 - 01:16:17.210

But how do you think these kind of debates... Do you think they've changed Woman's Studies at all?

01:16:17.210 - 01:16:25.830

[JS] Start the question again? [DKS] The diversity of women's own personal issues being part of Women's Studies.

01:16:25.870 - 01:16:40.850

Do you think that that has kept you on the forefront maybe? Or the fact that you listen to what the students raise as issues? [JS] Well, I think that's a good question because I think

01:16:40.850 - 01:16:49.500

sometimes the students are out ahead of us, and sometimes we're out ahead of the students. You know, I think that, that's not a one directional motivator.

01:16:49.500 - 01:16:58.750

I think in terms of race, I think we have to some extent with our predominantly white campus,

01:16:58.750 - 01:17:11.480

white student body, we have had to push that more than they've pushed us. On the other hand, I did an analysis a few years ago

01:17:11.480 - 01:17:21.000

of our students by race and discovered that at the time a third of our students were students of color.

01:17:21.000 - 01:17:28.400

Whereas we know that, what is it now for student body? It's something like, is it 5 or 10%? I can't remember.

01:17:28.400 - 01:17:36.260

It's quite low. It's horrifically low. So we do attract quite a few students of color,

01:17:36.260 - 01:17:42.890

I'm really glad to say, which to me says we are doing something right. But for our white students, I think that that wasn't

01:17:42.890 - 01:17:52.670

an obvious connection to make. And we've worked at making that connection and I think we've worked pretty effectively at it.

01:17:52.670 - 01:17:57.980

So I don't think it's always the students that lead us. I think sometimes we're leading them, which is good.

01:17:57.980 - 01:18:10.370

But I mean, obviously in many ways we lead in many ways, we collaborate. I mean, it's, you know, it goes back and forth. The diversity of student experiences.

01:18:10.370 - 01:18:19.190

We have very few older returning students. The University as a whole has fewer than most universities of its size. And I just got an

01:18:19.190 - 01:18:26.210

email two days ago from a woman in her sixties who was already an RN who wants to now become a Women's Studies

01:18:26.210 - 01:18:38.660

major and then come back to school and do this. Yeah. So I, you know, I don't think that we have embraced all the possible diversities

01:18:38.660 - 01:18:47.620

of women's voices and experience out there, in terms of our student body. I think we work hard to incorporate that material into the classroom.

01:18:47.620 - 01:19:09.560

Ability, age, sexuality, sexual identity, race, ethnicity, religious experience. You know, I think we work hard at these. I doubt that will ever

01:19:09.560 - 01:19:19.930

be successful because I think that it's a constantly changing landscape. And that we'll be challenged all the time

01:19:19.930 - 01:19:29.390

to recognize and address the experiences that our students bring to us. And on the other hand,

01:19:29.390 - 01:19:37.100

the experiences that we become aware of in a more intellectual frame that we want to bring to students. I'm not sure

01:19:37.100 - 01:19:46.940

I answered the question exactly, but... [DKS] Well, the question wasn't that clear. But you did. You did answer it. [JS] May I jump up and get a tissue for my allergies?

01:19:46.940 - 01:20:00.360

[DKS] Sure. Yeah. [JS] Thank you. I'll blow my nose. Oh my god, my back is so stiff from all the packing. [DKS] We don't have too much longer to go. There's 44 minutes left on the clock.

01:20:00.360 - 01:20:15.750

[JS] We can wrap it up. [DKS] So I know you've talked about... I guess there's a couple more things, probably 3 more things that I'd like to get you to address.

01:20:15.750 - 01:20:24.510

You talked a little bit about how the beginning of the Women's Studies curriculum and the formation of the department

01:20:24.510 - 01:20:34.220

has change kind of direction over the years. Can you elaborate a little bit more on what you think maybe what was the mission at the beginning? And what it is now? [JS] Sure, sure.

01:20:34.220 - 01:20:44.440

At the very beginning, it was really a matter of trying to introduce material on women, period. I mean, there...

01:20:44.440 - 01:20:52.390

it just wasn't being taught. And Women's Studies was seen as kind of a corrective to that, that this was a place where you would get

01:20:52.390 - 01:20:58.750

the information that you wouldn't get in other places. But, at the same time, Women's Studies was determined to see

01:20:58.750 - 01:21:07.820

the disciplines embrace the new scholarship that was coming out about women. So there were a couple of, there were parallel interests going on.

01:21:07.820 - 01:21:14.110

You know, women were going to be represented by Women's Studies, come hell or high water. And we're going to

01:21:14.110 - 01:21:25.850

also encourage the campus to recognize the scholarship that was being done on women so that it could be integrated.

01:21:25.850 - 01:21:34.460

There was early on this kind of notion that's referred to sometimes as the "add and stir" early days of Women's Studies.

01:21:34.460 - 01:21:40.250

You know, you just kind of pour a little bit of women into the course and stirred around, and you have a course

01:21:40.250 - 01:21:53.360

that's better because it has some women in it. You know, it was very simplistic back then. We had a course, I'm trying to remember if

01:21:53.360 - 01:22:02.190

it was a course which are just a series of lectures called The History of Women. I mean the history of women?! How could you talk about that?

01:22:02.190 - 01:22:10.070

It was so, it's such a monumental thing now, but I'm sure there was so little material available in print that if you were

01:22:10.070 - 01:22:18.440

going to develop that class, you could represent the majority of what was out there with relative ease. Now you'd have to focus on something,

01:22:18.440 - 01:22:25.950

some aspect of the history of women. History of women would just be way too great an area to try to cover.

01:22:26.500 - 01:22:34.700

So as the material became more and more available for academics, and as academics became more and more encouraged

01:22:34.700 - 01:22:40.230

to produce the material, because, you know, if you're, if you've just come out of out of your PhD program

01:22:40.230 - 01:22:47.900

and you're hired into department X. And department X doesn't see scholarship on women as valuable and you have to get tenure,

01:22:47.900 - 01:22:56.450

you're not going to focus on it. But if you have a Chair and a faculty that are amenable to seeing the value of the work.

01:22:56.450 - 01:23:05.040

Then you're gonna start writing articles and a book, and next thing you know, you're the expert in the history of women.

01:23:05.440 - 01:23:12.020

And that's what was beginning to happen. There was more and more of that starting to happen. So it was partly a matter

01:23:12.020 - 01:23:22.070

of timing all works together, right? We were here because that was happening and then that was happening because we were here.

01:23:22.070 - 01:23:40.100

[DKS] I think that's really, a kind of whole part of being really cool...can I use that word?... part of being a Women's Studies student, because you see your professors have sometimes written the book, or one of the books,

01:23:40.100 - 01:23:48.860

that you're learning in class. So that's exciting. [JS] It is. I mean, they are, that's the idea is to be, as a faculty member,

01:23:48.860 - 01:23:58.610

is to be a creator of knowledge, to actually push that envelope further. [DKS] Do you think that's been done effectively? [JS] Well, in part, that's

01:23:58.610 - 01:24:06.800

why you need tenure lines, because the other positions are teaching-focused positions. They're not

01:24:06.800 - 01:24:15.570

evaluated on the basis of research and publication, and they're not expected to spend their time doing research.

01:24:15.570 - 01:24:25.010

And you need time. You need to have the capacity to do it. So, you know, as I think on this campus,

01:24:25.010 - 01:24:34.520

I would say that that had been one of our weakest links for a long period of time. We've been very lucky to have a series of directors and

01:24:34.520 - 01:24:42.230

now Chairs who have published extensively and whose reputations are quite strong. So in some senses,

01:24:42.230 - 01:24:51.470

especially in the early days, they lifted us along with them. But now we're in a position where there's actually quite a decent amount

01:24:51.470 - 01:24:58.010

of publishing that's coming out of Women's Studies itself. And that should continue to grow. There's no reason why it wouldn't. I mean,

01:24:58.010 - 01:25:06.600

we have a young faculty member now. We would hope we would get another one coming up in a few years. But that's what you need.

01:25:06.600 - 01:25:13.580

You need people who are, going to have years ahead of them, of being, of creating scholarship. I mean, we have wonderful

01:25:13.580 - 01:25:23.220

established faculty members, like Alvina Quintana and Margaret Stetz, who came to us full-blown scholars already with tenure,

01:25:23.220 - 01:25:30.890

and they have certainly enhanced our position and are both producing and continuing to produce. But if you can grow somebody

01:25:30.890 - 01:25:39.230

internally from the ground up, it's even a stronger position to be in. And that's what we're starting to do now. That's our next phase.

01:25:39.230 - 01:25:46.430

That's where we're heading. [DKS] That's the new challenge? [JS] Yep. [DKS] So what are... what would you say you're most proud of

01:25:46.430 - 01:25:59.250

during your time here at Women's Studies at the University of Delaware? What if you could just pick maybe one thing, even if it's over 2 years, or just even.

01:25:59.290 - 01:26:12.290

Or maybe that you won the Trabant award? You know, something that meant a lot to you? [JS] It would be the development of the Domestic Violence concentration. That. It just it feels so right to me.

01:26:12.290 - 01:26:18.530

It's the reason I came back to graduate school all those years ago to connect making real change in

01:26:18.530 - 01:26:28.070

the real world with my scholarship and activism. You know, it's just, it just feels like I can be done now,

01:26:28.070 - 01:26:37.760

without feeling like I've left it undone. And that has been tremendous for me. It's something I anticipate

01:26:37.760 - 01:26:44.630

will go on forever. I hope. I'm hoping. [DKS] Well hopefully. [JS] Yeah, I know. [DKS] We've been waiting forever for it.

01:26:44.630 - 01:26:49.640

[JS] Yeah. Well, I mean, I hope that yeah. [DKS] Eventually, we probably will. [JS] Yeah. [DKS] There's such a need for it. [JS] I'm sorry to say that,

01:26:49.640 - 01:26:56.290

it probably will. But at least, you know, at least into the foreseeable future. And what I hope for,

01:26:56.290 - 01:27:03.020

and what we're already talking about, and starting to do some planning is that we would add a sexual assault component to that.

01:27:03.020 - 01:27:15.150

Then, you know, my life's work is over then. That's it, that's it. [DKS] And so what do you think still needs to be addressed?

01:27:15.150 - 01:27:29.340

Do you see, in the future, I mean, you said about the sexual assault program. But is there anything else that you think needs to be addressed? Like I see a huge lack of funding out there

01:27:29.340 - 01:27:40.190

which is something that, you know, is the department even aware of this issue? [JS] Well, you know, there are a lot of things that go into the funding problem.

01:27:40.190 - 01:27:46.610

Obviously, the economy being in the doldrums is a major issue. There have also been some interesting studies done

01:27:46.610 - 01:27:57.220

about women as philanthropists and what they give to or don't give to. And I think we... some of that affects us as well.

01:27:57.220 - 01:28:09.680

We also have a relatively new alumni base. You know, History's had an alumni base for 1000 years. Psychology, maybe less so,

01:28:09.680 - 01:28:22.040

but still much longer than Women's Studies. We just don't have those older, wealthier folk out there yet. And now we have younger,

01:28:22.040 - 01:28:28.850

poorer people because of the economy and because they're women. Women still aren't making what men are making.

01:28:28.850 - 01:28:36.500

So, you know, that's an issue as well. We're kind of a little bit boxed in, I think by a number of factors that are specific

01:28:36.500 - 01:28:45.980

to us being about women and us being primarily women, we're not, of course, all women, but primarily so. So I think that that is an issue.

01:28:45.980 - 01:28:53.870

I think an even greater issue connected to that though, is that we're under an administration right now that

01:28:53.870 - 01:29:03.890

sees fundraising as the job of academic departments. I don't agree. And I would have to undergo

01:29:03.890 - 01:29:13.770

a major brain transplant to agree with that. Maybe that'll happen some day. I don't know. But my sense is that

01:29:13.770 - 01:29:23.950

there is a difference in the world between educational institutions and businesses. And I understand

01:29:23.950 - 01:29:33.260

the market economy we're in. I understand that we now put a financial value on everything. And that almost everything

01:29:33.260 - 01:29:39.780

can be bought and sold. I think it's a terrible mistake. I also don't think that these things are permanent.

01:29:39.780 - 01:29:47.840

Everything changes. This may last a long time, it may not. I don't like it. And that's what I have

01:29:47.840 - 01:29:57.270

to say about fundraising. Yes, we kind of have to do it. We're in the doldrums about it. I don't think we should have to do it.

01:29:57.270 - 01:30:13.850

[DKS] Just one last thing. What do you say to critics who say that Women's Studies isn't a serious discipline? [JS] You know, there is no way that you can

01:30:13.850 - 01:30:31.040

pick up the New York Times any day of the week and not find major headlines that are all about some aspect of sex/gender inequality.

01:30:31.040 - 01:30:43.880

They're not open-eyed if critics who think that this is not important need to read the newspaper. You know, I don't know what else to say.

01:30:43.880 - 01:30:53.540

It's all around us, and it's all around us every day. It's endemic to the fabric of the society we live in.

01:30:53.540 - 01:31:03.500

And I guess to some extent that's why you can become blinded to it. But, you know, there are days when I read the front page of

01:31:03.500 - 01:31:18.140

the Times and half the articles have a sex/gender focus. It's big, it's major stuff. You know, when we have...

01:31:18.140 - 01:31:29.170

when we have whole societies, including our own, where women are relegated to one position or another and men to others based entirely on

01:31:29.170 - 01:31:43.000

how they're identified as men and women and not based on their desires or their capacities. You know, it's an anachronism.

01:31:43.000 - 01:31:56.780

It should be an anachronism. [DKS] Okay, I guess we'll wrap it up there. That was really good. Do you think that... I know Marie has this think up on her door

01:31:56.780 - 01:32:08.500

that says like, "I love feminism more than ever because [JS] Nothing's changed. [DKS] Nothing's changed! Do you think anything really has changed? [JS] I do.

01:32:08.500 - 01:32:16.340

Yeah, I talk about this all the time in my classes, because students often see the present moment as being the only moment that's ever lived.

01:32:16.340 - 01:32:20.580

It's partly just to do with how young they are, right? I mean, they just haven't lived long enough to know.

01:32:20.580 - 01:32:32.480

And I have to point out to them that historical change is tremendous. One of the most influential things that I've done this year, and I'm not finished yet,

01:32:32.480 - 01:32:37.930

I keep starting it and getting sidetracked. There's this wonderful book written by Steven Pinker,

01:32:37.930 - 01:32:45.580

something called the subtitle is "the better angels of ourselves" or something like that. But he looks

01:32:45.580 - 01:32:57.650

at violence over the entire history, written history of humanity, over all cultures, over all time. And one of the conclusions

01:32:57.650 - 01:33:03.110

he draws from, And through all the disciplines. He looks at Psychology, Sociology, Economics, History, I mean,

01:33:03.110 - 01:33:09.860

it's a fantastic lens from which to try to understand this. And one of the things he says is that one of the reasons

01:33:09.860 - 01:33:21.870

why violence seems so prevalent, and seems to be a growing epidemic is because we're less tolerant.

01:33:21.870 - 01:33:28.970

There actually is less. There is less of it, but we're less tolerant of it. It's a good thing, right?

01:33:28.970 - 01:33:40.220

There is less and we're less tolerant. Both of those are really positive. We don't want to see it anymore. It used to be normal.

01:33:40.220 - 01:33:53.300

It used to be the way people lived and now we're saying we shouldn't live this way. So yeah, I think change happens.

01:33:53.300 - 01:34:01.340

I think it just happens dramatically, but it happens over a long period of time. And you have to have some historical perspective

01:34:01.340 - 01:34:10.440

in order to understand that it's happened, and to appreciate the changes that have taken place. [DKS] Okay. Thank you very much. [JS] You're welcome.