Galway Advertiser 2007/2007_03_08/GA_0803_E1_018.pdf 

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March 8 2007

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Councillor calls for Women's Studies Centre to continue functioning as `independent entity'
BY MARY O'CONNOR A local city councillor is calling for the Women's Studies Centre at NUI Galway to be allowed continue functioning as an "independent entity" and not to be incorporated into the mainstream of the campus. Councillor Catherine Connolly's comments come as the Save Women's Studies Coalition, a group of women including past students and community groups, are organising a protest march about the issue today (Thursday), International Women's Day. They claim the Women's Studies Centre is facing closure and is losing its academic posts to the Department of Political Science and Sociology. They are committed to retaining the present status of women's studies at the college and say the "proposed restructuring" of it by the university is unacceptable. However, the Dean of Arts at the college, Professor Kevin Barry, rejected the claim last week and said the centre (which is based in Newcastle) is being incorporated into the mainstream body of the campus. "We are trying to mainstream women's studies rather than it being out on a limb," he said. "We are rebuilding, strengthening and developing women's studies." Cllr Connolly says she has tabled an urgent motion for the next city council meeting asking councillors to call on the university to review its decision "to close down" the Women's Studies Centre. "The women's studies course was set up in 1988 and the centre as an independent entity was officially opened by President Mary Robinson in 1991. Since that time it has gone from strength to strength. In fact a formal review of the centre was completed in April 2006 and the written report compiled was extremely positive. "Yet notwithstanding this report and without any consultation whatsoever the university has decided to reduce the staff complement and subsume the centre under the Department of Sociology and Politics," she claims. "Furthermore 46 academic staff within the university have come on record to oppose this decision and to fully support the Women's Studies Centre remaining as a separate entity within the university." She says it is vitally important that the centre continues to function as an independent entity and to provide an academic forum to research, analyse and assess the role of women in society and to promote and raise women's awareness and self-confidence. The Women's Studies Centre has stood out, she says, as a discipline which has succeeded in breaking down the barriers between "ordinary people in Galway and the university". Meanwhile in a statement NUI Galway stresses women's studies is not closing. "Rather, the discipline will be assured of the resources to expand and gain in strength. Student numbers have been waning in courses offered by the Women's Studies Centre: only two full-time students are enrolled in its MA programme. " It is a brave and imaginative decision of the university now to advertise two new senior positions in women's studies. Such a large investment can only be based on new strategies to support and expand the academic provision of women's studies. To this end, we are introducing a new BA programme with women's studies next year. We are re-locating women's studies from its house outside the university into a dedicated and integrated space at the heart of the campus as part of a vibrant teaching and research environment."

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