The Women?s Studies Program at Sacramento State is currently without a single full-time faculty member at a critical point in the program?s development.

“Without the faculty we cannot expand the program,” said Rita Cameron-Wedding, Coordinator for Women?s Studies. “You need to have a strong core faculty.”

Cameron-Wedding, who splits her time between coordinating the Women?s Studies Program and teaching courses for the Ethnic Studies Department, has been with the program since 1993.

At one point, she said, the Women?s Studies Program did have 2.5 full-time faculty members, but “experienced attrition” when some staff members moved on and left the program.

“This does disadvantage us,” said Cameron-Wedding; however, she strongly believes the university is in support of the Women?s Studies Program.

According to its Web site at http://www.csus.edu/woms, the program is vital in the examination of “women?s contributions to culture, knowledge, and society.” Classes taught within the program include “Gender, Race, and Class” and “Women and Politics,” which explore the roles, challenges, and accomplishments of women in past and present societies.

Last spring, the program underwent a review to evaluates its current standing. The evaluation, said Cameron-Wedding, was done by a group of faculty members and an outside consultant to “find out what works and what doesn?t.”

The outside consultant for this review was Elizabeth Say, the director of the Women?s Studies Department for CSU Northridge, which employs four full-time and three part-time faculty members.

“I think it?s a program that has a lot of support on campus and has a lot of history,” Say said. “It?s just at a fragile point.”

Women?s Studies at CSU Northridge has been a department of the university since 1993, and has recently been approved to offer a bachelor?s degree for Fall 2000. Sac State?s program offers a “special major” and is considered only a program, not a department. The last review of the Women?s Studies Program, documented during the 93-94 school year, made several recommendations towards the program?s growth.

Consultant Elizabeth Berry, a professor in speech communication at CSU Northridge, recommended in the program review that “it would be beneficial to establish a Women?s Studies major and department. Although it has become a recognized field of study, Women?s Studies remains controversial in academic circles. Departmental status would stabilize the program by having its own tenured faculty and regularized curriculum development and innovation.”

When the current course catalog was originally released, the Women?s Studies Program at Sacramento State offered only 12 classes for the Fall 2000 semester. Due to a lack of faculty, two classes have been dropped.

“It all revolves around the faculty,” Cameron-Wedding said. “If we had a major, we would offer lower division courses and would be a greater factor in General Education.” Currently, the Women?s Studies Program offers only upper-division courses.

“Changes will have to be made to go forward,” Say said. “There?s a lot there to build on?tremendous students and alumni and committed faculty.”

As for the near future, Cameron-Wedding is writing a hiring plan for the 2001-2002 school year, in which she hopes to acquire at least two more faculty members for the Women?s Studies Program.

After approval,Cameron-Wedding said, the concept of a strong core faculty and the transition to becoming its own department is within reach.