Last year, 2012, marked the 21st anniversary of the program in women and gender studies (WAGS). In 2013, the May Belle Chellis Women’s Resource Center, commonly known as the Chellis House, will celebrate its 20th anniversary.
To mark these special occasions, the WAGS program and Chellis House held a commemorative dinner on Monday, Dec. 10 in Atwater Dining Hall.
Over 60 staff, faculty, current students and alumni came together to celebrate the progress of women and gender studies at the College from its conception in the early 1980s to a full-fledged program in 1991.
Professors across several departments and programs recalled the WAGS and Chellis history, including Professor of Geography and Director of Rohatyn Center Tamar Mayer, Jean Thompson Fulton Professor of Modern Language & Literature Kevin Moss, A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Sociology Peggy Nelson and many more.
The dinner also featured a presentation compiled by WAGS students Caroline Kahlenberg ’14, Jackie Park ’15 and Allie Weinstein ’13.5. Over several months leading up to the dinner in December, Kahlenberg and Weinstein collected an oral history archive featuring past and current professors and their own accounts of sexism, the College’s ambivalence towards WAGS and the positive changes they saw on campus.
Park interviewed alumni and other supporters of the program to find out how WAGS and the Chellis House enhanced their lives at the College and beyond. She also gathered information about the history of May Belle Chellis, the first woman to graduate from the College. The stories these students captured throughout their research will be available online in the near future.
Mayer recounted some of her early experiences as an advocate for a women’s studies program when the campus culture was less than friendly towards females in general, let alone feminists.
In 1986, she, along with colleagues Nelson, Professor Emeritus Diana Henderson and several other professors, organized a women’s studies faculty seminar featuring professors from Smith College, Dartmouth College, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and other colleges to talk about how to bring a women’s studies related major to the college. Later that year, women’s studies became a concentration offered by the sociology department. In 1989, the administration approved a major in women’s studies and by 1991 WAGS had graduated its first two majors.
In 1993, Chellis House opened with the support and financial backing of Drue Cortell Gensler ’57 and became the home to various organizations such as the Women’s Union, Artemis magazine, Middlebury Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Alliance, Feminist Action at Middlebury and Women of Color.
Jan Albers, the first director of the Chellis House from 1995-1997 discussed her experience working on the Task Force on the Status of Women, a 1996 report designed to assess the College’s progress in creating a hospitable environment for female students, faculty and staff. The report applauded the women’s studies program, Chellis House, the development of sexual harassment policies and the elimination of fraternities.
In 1988, fraternities were abolished after several accounts of hostility involving Greek life were reported. In May of 1988, during the annual Delta Upsilon toga party, a female mannequin splattered with red paint and the epithet “Random Hole” had been suspended from the house’s balcony, where it remained for several days until then-Dean of the Faculty Maggie O’Brien asked for it to be taken down.
“The report got a lot of discussion going on campus, and I hope that it served as a call to action,” said Albers.
The beginning of the 21st century also saw new advancements in the program in Women’s Studies. In 1999, the College instituted parental leave for faculty, allowing them to take one term off from teaching with full pay when giving birth or adopting a child. By 2000, the program’s name became women and gender studies and the introductory course on gay and lesbian studies was offered. In 2001, Amy Ellman became the first full-time hire in the program.
Three years later, female professors held three of the top nine administrative positions, thus fulfilling one of the recommendations of the 1996 Task Force report, which highlighted the lack of women in the upper echelons of the college administration. In 2005, Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies Sujata Moorti was hired as the first tenured professor in the program.
In March of 2008, the task force on the status of women reassessed policies and attitudes on campus revolving around women. They largely approved of the new parental leave and child-care policies, in addition to the expansion of the WAGS program. However, the report found that sexism still persisted in student social life and that many of the challenges for female students noted in past reports remained.
In a survey, female professors expressed their frustration with having to work harder in order to be perceived as “professorial.” The report also emphasized “the burden of representation and invisibility” felt by female faculty of color and the fear of LGBT students of being perceived as “too out.” A common theme determined by the report was the pressure on some students to be representative of their gender, color, sexuality, etc.
This year, the program and major will go through another transformation with more of an emphasis on gender and sexuality studies. These shifts in the curriculum highlight changes in the field and illustrate the new concerns around gender and sexuality that have emerged over the last four decades.
Today, there are over 20 cross-listed classes in the program for the 2012-2013 school year. While it is clear that the WAGS program and Chellis House have contributed to much positive action over the last few decades, the general sentiment at the December commemorative dinner was that no one would be completely satisfied until Middlebury is an entirely safe place for everyone.
In the words of Albers, “still, there is always more to do.”
With Additional Reporting by JACKIE PARK.
