When the Women's Studies program changed its name to the Women's and Gender Studies program in early July, the change reflected a larger shift in the feminist movement and society.
Susan Ackerman, co-chair of the Women's Studies program and a professor in the religion department, said that the change of name "reflects more accurately what women's studies is nationally."
The Women's Studies program started out offering courses about issues relating to women, according to Ackerman, but faculty soon realized that women's issues could be studied more meaningfully in the broader context of how both men and women shape gender identities.
Similarly, the program's petition for the name change states, "While in the early days of women's studies a great deal of attention was focused on 'rescuing' the submerged works of women and the focus was clearly women-centered, increasingly women's studies programs and departments have shifted toward an analysis of the construction of gender as a whole and courses now include gender as a fundamental category of analysis."
The petition also says that various prominennt colleges, including Yale, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Williams, Amherst and Rice, have altered the names of their departments to reflect these changes in the field.
The word "gender" in the new name also "underscores an ever-widening sphere of questions about the nature of sexuality and the discourses of the sexual within which our experience is embedded and which also shape it", according to the petition.
Ackerman said that this change in the program's focus reflects larger changes in feminism.
"The feminist movement started out nationally securing political, civil and social rights for women," she said, whereas the current generation of feminists is interested more in a "reconceptualization of gender roles for both men and women."
For instance, she noted that feminists have been interested in revising the myth that "only a male president can push the button to set off a nuclear bomb."
Subtle changes in the program's offerings have reflected this change in feminism, according to Ackerman.
For example, the current Women's Studies 10 course, "Sex, Gender and Society", was once titled "Sex, Women and Society," but the name changed to reflect differences in the course's emphasis, Ackerman said.
Courses cross-listed in women's studies and anthropology, government and sociology also have tended to emphasize how gender issues play out in society rather than focusing exclusively on issues pertaining to women, Ackerman said.
The name change had to be approved by three different committes, Ackerman said. The first, the Committee on Instruction, oversees all matters pertaining to curriculum and serves such functions as approving new courses, programs and majors.
Next, the proposed change went before the Fourth Divisional Council. Four councils--one for the humanities, one for the sciences, one for the social sciences, and one for interdisciplinary programs that do not fit neatly into any of the above categories--oversee faculty and academic matters at Dartmouth.
Finally, a petition appeared before the Committee of Chairs, a group comprised of the chairs of all department and programs at Dartmouth.
The name change became effective on July 1. The next issue of the Organization, Regulations and Courses booklet, which will be released in September, will list the program under the new name.
