Thanks to the efforts of Professor Christine Littleton, who had chaired WSP for eight years (and is currently serving as Interim Director of the Center for the Study of Women, our research arm), to the Women’s Studies Program Advisory Committee, to many other active faculty, to a large group of enthusiastic undergraduate and graduate students, and to a highly committed and talented staff, the Women’s Studies Programs have grown and grown. This last year was no exception. We expanded in majors, minors, department scholars, and graduate students. We offered a large number of diverse courses and saw solid enrollments.

Our WSP was awarded a Regent’s Scholar for two weeks, and had the privilege of the presence of a stimulating thinker and activist, Dr. Azza Karam, who has worked in a number of NGO’s that serve women internationally. Dr. Karam lectured in our classes, offered informal sessions with graduate students, and gave a well-received public lecture. Dr. Karam is especially skilled at explicating Islam and the Middle East, especially with regard to the role of women in Islam. Her lucid presentations clarified to the public, faculty, and students many misconceptions.

I took over for Chris in the winter and spring quarters, 2003-2004, and am continuing this next year, 2004-2005. All of us play on our strengths and build accordingly, and my contribution, as an anthropologist, to WS over the years has been international/-transnational studies, as well as an interest in postcolonial theories, with an emphasis on the Middle East and Africa. I am truly excited about building onto what Chris and others have built. Our plans for next year are a combination of activating projects and ideas from last year and completely new issues, ideas, and projects.

The Active Life of the Undergraduate Program: The Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, under the direction of Professor Karen Brodkin, has been working for two years to revise the Women’s Studies undergraduate curriculum to reflect major changes in the WS undergraduate field nationally and internationally. Working especially on the cornerstone course, Introduction to Women’s Studies (WS 10), this committee has attempted to transnationalize and internationalize the curriculum while maintaining the importance of material on the U.S., e.g., intersecting race, class, and gender. Committee members and the WS Acting Chair (who is a member of the committee) are also trying to attract more diverse ladder faculty on the campus by diversifying course material. The committee is developing a couple of new courses, as well as retitling and restructuring other courses within the major. That work will continue, and the committee will be applying for an OID grant. The grant would encourage faculty retraining to learn the new multicultural material. One undergraduate course will be offered in the winter that is not offered frequently. The Assistant Vice-Chancellor for Diversity has agreed to fund two courses to be taught by Shiva Falsafi, an Iranian Harvard law school graduate—Jurisprudence of Sexual Equality (WS 171) and International Human Rights and Women, to be taught under the rubric of variable topics. These two new offerings will enhance the international offerings and help diversify the faculty. It will also be a useful undergraduate compliment to the graduate women, law, and policy component lead by Christine Littleton and the emphasis on international human rights lead by Professor Ellen DuBois.

Stimulating Activity in the Graduate Program: The Graduate Curriculum Committee has also been working for nearly two years to offer parallel changes to the graduate curriculum. Two core courses have been retitled and reconceived—WS 201 (WS 201: Multicultural Feminist Knowledge Production: Early) and WS 202 (Multicultural Feminist Knowledge Production: Contemporary). I am chairing that committee of faculty and graduate students, and we are attempting to position the UCLA WS graduate program in the vanguard of Ph.D. programs in the country and the world. Professor Rachel Lee, in offering the revamped version of WS 202 this spring, has launched the new courses. WS 201 and 202 will both be offered in their new incarnation in 2004-2005, with Dr. Esha De teaching WS 201.

Some new components have been added to the curriculum, aiming to teach aspects of the profession. For the first time, this year there will be a workshop to train this year’s T.A.’s for WS 10 and WS 130 (Women of Color in the U.S.). At the same time, there will be a continuation (for the new students and continuing graduate students) a brief series of Feminist Pedagogy Workshops. In addition, the students themselves are interested in generating a course that concentrates on writing publishable articles, preparing Ph.D. proposals, writing grant applications, and generally working on their research ideas. Because of budget limitations, grad students may design a student-generated class with a faculty member of record facilitating the process. To further facilitate this graduate student goal of having their work critiqued by faculty, WS has reactivated WS 203, Feminist Methods, taught by Prof. Brodkin. It was offered in the spring and will be offered in the winter of the coming year.

WS has plans to revise and expand the Quality of Graduate Education project for which we were funded this year. We value highly the funding of student research and conference travel. This year our students have already taken advantage of the funding, with approved applications already for travel to India, Pakistan, Peru, Malaysia, Mexico, and the Netherlands. This geographical spread is further evidence of our growing cosmopolitan composition. We hope to be able to be competitive for a similar grant for the following year.

The last two years our Faculty Graduate Advisor, Professor Vilma Ortiz, worked toward some reforms in the program. We are moving forward with more clarity. With a new Faculty Graduate Advisor, Elizabeth Marchant, in place, there are various plans for some restructuring of the program. For example, we are currently working on a plan to rethink the Ph.D. breadth exams. I will be presenting a new plan to the Graduate Committee.

Perhaps the most ambitious project that is being undertaken this year (it was started earlier, but the year was spent conceiving the plan and getting the approval of the Faculty Advisory Committees for both Women’s Studies Programs and the Center for the Study of Women. The project is the UCLA/Global South Initiatives, designed as a major exchange program with women and gender studies institutions and centers in the Global South. The first leg of the project, designed to start the exchange while we are waiting for funding, is the appointment of a small group (starting with ten) as “Global South Scholars.” They will be formally attached to the CSW and WS, allowing them to access our library and database resources and giving us access to them. Later in the academic year, we will engage in videoconferencing, sharing the classroom space across cultures. OID has indicated that they have a grant to fund such a project. This project will involve other kinds of exchanges of our faculty and graduate students, but the year will be spent seeking funding for this major project that will culminate in an international conference on gender studies internationally, bringing in our partner scholars and graduate students from some ten countries, starting with India, Pakistan, Egypt, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Iran.

This is a year that will see Ellen DuBois and me organizing a workshop on international women’s rights and Esha De and me organizing another on Feminist Theories Meet Postcolonial/Transnational Theories, originally conceived by Professor Miriam Silverberg. It is a year of collaborative programming with the Center for the Study of Women and the Fowler Museum, and hopes of greater collaboration with African American Studies, Chicano/a Studies, Asian American Studies, and the regional centers of Africa and the Middle East. These collaborations are just a start.

The world of Women’s Studies is out there for us and for you!