By Kathy HansonStaff Writer
Published: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 11:26 AM CDT
Monday’s protest of budget cuts to the women’s studies program, “Speak Out! Act
Up! Teach In!” was endorsed by the program’s director, Diane Price-Herndl.
Just goes to show you what total garbage this field is that the director of the program has time for a protest. The rest of us have to publish, teach or engage in actual scholarship.
Price-Herndl said she fears the budget cuts will cause women to lose
ground, when they’re already lagging behind men in several areas. She said ISU
has only 43.8 percent female students, while the national average for
undergraduates is 55 percent.
So the latter is not a problem but the former is? If women are lagging behind at Iowa State, why would the solution be to give them some courses in bovine feces (but not an Ag course)? Shouldn't the point be to get them to take real courses, like mathematics or...well, it all starts with mathematics, doesn't it?
“What is important is the budget represents a 6.68 percent increase in the
dollars for teaching,”
Teaching? What else do they do? I shudder to think what these people think is research.
Whiteford said the women’s studies program budget reflects a reduction in
staffing to bring the women’s studies clerical and programmatic support more in
line with “other cross-disciplinary studies programs we have in the college.”
In other words, they've had it too good for too long.
“In the various budget cuts earlier this decade, the women’s studies
program’s budget was left untouched,” he said.
Way too good. And it should be noted that these programs do not belong to a department. In some sense, they shouldn't have much of a budget at all. The departments should be providing the bulk of the money for teaching.
This is how the humanities and social sciences work at ISU. Each faculty member typically belongs to several programs. This permits a bloated and inflated budget for them collectively.
Another Liberal Arts and Sciences program for women, the Catt Center for Women
and Politics, was the only entity in the college not to receive a budget cut
for fiscal year 2009-2010, Whiteford said.
There are two? Why are there two? Either kill the Catt Center or kill the Women's Studies program. Or merge them. These budget cuts are really showing some major cracks.
Whiteford said he has been a strong advocate of diversity since before he became
dean. “I established the LAS College’s first diversity committee, in
existence since 2003,” he said.
Well, Dean, you made your bed, now lie in it.
