This book explores how deans of women actively fostered feminism in the mid-twentieth century through a study of the career of Dr. Emily Taylor, the University of Kansas dean of women from 1956-1974. Sartorius links feminist activism by deans of women with labor activism, the New Left movement, and the later rise of women's studies as a discipline.

Co-published with How do we interrupt the current paradigms of sexism in the academy? How do we construct a new and inclusive gender paradigm that resists the dominant values of the patriarchy? And why are these agendas important not just for women, but for higher education as a whole? These are the questions that these extensive and rich analyses of the historical and contemporary roles of women in higher education— as administrators, faculty, students, and student affairs professionals—seek constructively to answer. In doing so they address the intersection of gender and women’s other social identities, such as of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class, and ability. This book addresses the experiences and position of women students, from application to college through graduate school, and the barriers they encounter; the continuing inequalities in the rates of promotion and progression of women and other marginalized groups to positions of authority, and the gap in earnings between men and women; and pays particular attention to how race and other social markers impact such disparities, contextualizing them across all institutional types. Written collaboratively by an intergenerational group of women, men, and transgender people with different social identities, feminist perspectives, and professional identities— and who, in the process, built upon each other’s work—this volume constitutes a call to educators and scholars to work toward centering feminist and other marginalized perspectives in their practice and research in order to equitably address the evolving complexities of college and university life. Employing a wide range of theoretical lenses, examining a variety of models of practice, and giving voice to a diversity of personal experiences through narrative, this is a major contribution to the scholarship on women in higher education. This is a book for all women in the academy who want to better understand their experience, and to dismantle the remaining barriers of sexism and oppression—for themselves, and future generations of students. An ACPA Publication

A “deeply researched and uncommonly engrossing” book profiling ten trailblazing literary women, including Dorothy Parker and Joan Didion (Paris Review). In Sharp, Michelle Dean explores the lives of ten women of vastly different backgrounds and points of view who all made a significant contribution to the cultural and intellectual history of America. These women—Dorothy Parker, Rebecca West, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, Susan Sontag, Pauline Kael, Joan Didion, Nora Ephron, Renata Adler, and Janet Malcolm—are united by what Dean calls “sharpness,” the ability to cut to the quick with precision of thought and wit. Sharp is a vibrant depiction of the intellectual beau monde of twentieth-century New York, where gossip-filled parties gave out to literary slugging-matches in the pages of the Partisan Review or the New York Review of Books. It is also a passionate portrayal of how these women asserted themselves through their writing despite the extreme condescension of the male-dominated cultural establishment. Mixing biography, literary criticism, and cultural history, Sharp is a celebration of this group of extraordinary women, an engaging introduction to their works, and a testament to how anyone who feels powerless can claim the mantle of writer, and, perhaps, change the world.

This book is comprised of reflections by diverse women's studies scholars, focusing on the many ways in which the field has evolved from its first introduction in the University setting to the present day.

* Reveals continuing barriers to success for women students* Offers remedies that will benefit all studentsWhat are the realities behind recent press reports suggesting that women students have taken over higher education, both outnumbering males and academically outperforming them? Does women’s development during college diverge from the commonly accepted model of cognitive growth? Does pedagogy in higher education take into account their different ways of knowing? Are there still barriers to women’s educational achievement? In answering these questions, this book’s overarching message is that the application of research on women’s college experiences has enriched teaching and learning for all students. It describes the broad benefits of new pedagogical models, and how feminist education aligns with the new call for civic education for all students. The book also examines conditions and disciplines that remain barriers for women’s educational success, particularly in quantitative and scientific fields. It explores problems that arise at the intersection of race and gender and offers some transformative approaches. It considers the impact of the campus environment—such as the rise of binge drinking, sexual assault, and homophobic behaviors—on women students’ progress, and suggests means for improving the peer culture for all students. It concludes with an auto-narrative analysis of teaching women's studies to undergraduates that offers insights into the practicalities and joys of teaching. At a time when women constitute the majority of students on most campuses, this book offers insights for all teachers, male and female, into how to help them to excel; and at the same time how to engage all their students, in all their diversity, through the application of feminist pedagogy.

Shows the tenacious spirit and hard work of women administrators in their struggles to enhance opportunities for women on college campuses.

Winner of the Outstanding Publication Award of the Post-secondary Education Division of the American Educational Research Association In Shattering the Myths, Judith Glazer-Raymo uses a critical feminist perspective to examine women's progress in higher education since 1970. She contrasts the activism of the 1970s, the passivity of the 1980s, and the ambivalence and antipathy demonstrated toward feminism in the 1990s. These waves of change, she explains, were brought about by external forces, by generational differences among women, and by intellectual and ideological struggles within the women's movement and the larger academic culture. In tracing three decades of women's progress in the academy, the author provides data from a variety of sources on women's rank, salary, employment status, and education. The book also draws on the experience of women faculty and administrators as they articulate and reflect on the social, economic, political, and ideological contexts in which they work and the multiple influences on their professional and personal lives.