Diversity in times of austerity: documenting resistance in the academy

Abstract

What happens to feminism in the university is parallel to what happens to feminism in other venues under economic restructuring: while the impoverished nation is forced to cut social services and thereby send women back to the hierarchy of the family, the academy likewise reduces its footprint in interdisciplinary structures and contains academic feminists back to the hierarchy of departments and disciplines. When the family and the department become powerful arbiters of cultural values, women and feminist academics by and large suffer: they either accept a diminished role or are pushed to compete in a system they recognize as antithetical to the foundational values of feminist priorities of social justice. Collaborative work to nurture diversity and interdisciplinarity does not register as individual accomplishment. This paper considers the necessity of this type of academic work to further the vision of a society committed to the collective values espoused by feminism and other areas in social justice.

Keywords::

• diversity
• economic austerity
• feminism
• interdisciplinarity
• liberal arts
• neoliberalism

Notes

^1. See Nancy Frasier's (2013) recent article on the complicated and ambivalent entanglement of feminism with neoliberalism.

^2. One humorously disconcerting manifestation of this phenomenon is the shopping cart icon that students use to register for classes at Flatpoint University. They are literally ‘shopping for classes’.

^3. At the same time, authors of this paper also recognize that the post-First World War growth of public higher education in the USA also accomplished upward social mobility for working class citizens.

^4. For a detailed account of the creation of the Collaborative as a strategic manoeuvre, see Carney et al. (2012).

^5. See Ahmed (2012), Evans (2004), and Newfield (2010).

^6. Bernardi and Ghelfi (2010) refer to this as a crisis in ‘knowledge measurement’ to valorize the immeasurable (p. 108). Bousquet (2010) asserts assessment is ‘easily spun to nearly any purpose by agile institutional actors’ in an effort to put ‘labour under pressure: the instruments are supposed to be easily defeated’ to demonstrate more is being done, even with less (p. 75).

^7. In the USA, a ‘department’ is a group of faculty in the same discipline of study (e.g. Political Science, Biology and so on) that oversees individual courses (classes) and students majoring in that area. As new areas of knowledge develop, we add interdisciplinary ‘programmes’ such as women's and gender studies, which draw on faculty from various existing departments.

^8. Evidenced by a new Center of Global Education, global initiative grants available from the Provost's office, a Global Adventures in the Liberal Arts programme, an office and director dedicated to the GHS component of the core curriculum, and an International Studies programme that consolidates all non-US-focused courses offered by Flatpoint's 12 liberal arts departments.

^9. Administrators welcome austerity because ‘It's what they know how to do; it's their whole culture, the reason for their existence, the justification for their salary and perks, the core criteria for their bonuses: the quality way, 5% or 10% cheaper every year’ (Bousquet 2010, p. 78).

^10. As late as October 2013, Flatpoint University did establish a Commission on Diversity, but mostly in response to its accrediting body's continued low scoring of Flatpoint's efforts to address diversity.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Moscowitz

David Moscowitz, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Communication and Associate Director of Women's and Gender Studies at the College of Charleston, SC, USA. He is also a faculty affiliate in Film Studies, Jewish Studies and African American Studies. He is the author of A Culture of Tough Jews: Rhetorical Regeneration and the Politics of Identity (Peter Lang, 2014) and has published articles in venues devoted to rhetoric, cultural studies and Jewish studies including Critical Studies in Media Communication, Studies in American Jewish Literature and Text and Performance Quarterly. The International Communication Association has recognized his work with top paper honors, and he serves on the editorial board for Critical Studies in Media Communication. He studies cultural politics of identity with particular attention on tropes of gender and the body, (post)assimilation and Jewish public culture.

Terri Jett

Terri Jett, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Political Science and an affiliate faculty member of GWSS at Butler University, IN, USA, where she served 6 years as department chair (and is happily no longer in that position). She teaches a wide range of courses on US politics with a focus on the experiences of African Americans and other domestic ethnic minorities such as Black Political Thought, Racial and Ethnic Politics, and The Politics of Alice Walker. She also teaches a Senior Seminar on Political Humor and an Honors City-as-text course on the Selma-to-Montgomery Voting Rights March. Her research focus is on the development and experiences of African Americans in rural communities in the southern USA and is currently writing on the recent Pigford I and II settlements concerning black farmers against the US Department of Agriculture. She is the author of Agenda Setting and Decision Making of African American Officials: The Case of Wilcox County (Mellen, 2004).

Terri Carney

Terri Carney, Ph.D. is Professor of Spanish and an affiliate faculty member of GWSS at Butler University, IN, USA, where she is also the chair of the Modern Languages, Literatures, & Cultures department. She teaches and writes on a variety of topics including Spanish literature, women in the academy, service learning and pop culture, and participated in the inaugural year of the collaboratively taught Global and Historical Studies (GHS) core course Rights and Resistance: Women's Global Human Rights. She has published articles and essays in various venues, including the journals Letras peninsulares, Hispania, Ojáncano, Bright Lights Film Journal, Journal of Latinos and Education, Bulletin of the Comediantes, and the 2011 book The Essential Sopranos Reader.

Tamara Leech

Tamara G.J. Leech, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences in the Indiana University Richard Fairbanks School of Public Health, Indiana, USA. Her research primarily focuses on the gender dynamics and community context of black urban youths’ health behaviours. Dr Leech is an affiliate faculty member in Women's Studies and Africana Studies, is currently a William T. Grant Scholar and serves as a research team member for the GrassRoots Community Foundation and the Fearless Dialogues Initiative. Her work has appeared in Journal of Adolescent Health, Youth and Society, Journal of African American Studies, Journal of Community Practice, Agenda for Social Justice: Solutions 2012 and various other outlets.

Ann Savage

Ann Savage, Ph.D. is Professor of Media, Rhetoric & Culture and an affiliate faculty member of GWSS at Butler University, IN, USA. Her research and teaching primarily focuses on feminist and queer media studies, and she participated in the inaugural year of the collaboratively taught GHS core course Rights and Resistance: Women's Global Human Rights. Her work has appeared in Historical Journal of Film, Radio & Television and Journal of Popular Film and Television. She is the author of They're Playing Our Songs: Women Talk about Feminist Rock Music (Praeger, 2003).