Font ResizeSome faculty members at Brigham Young University are mourning the apparent demise of the school's Women's Research Institute, an interdisciplinary center that has sponsored research across the academic spectrum for three decades.
Administration officials announced the move last week, calling it a reorganization that "will result in significantly expanded resources and creative activities pertaining to women," according to BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins.
But in an Internet posting, unnamed WRI-affiliated faculty noted that the reorganization removes an institution with a record of coordinating research across disciplines, from ancient scripture to health science. The center, with 83 affiliated faculty from nearly every department on campus, has published dozens of papers, notably in the areas of peace and violence.
"This is really significant research that has been recognized at the highest levels in social science and it's disappearing as a university priority. It's utterly lamentable because there's still a need for that," said political science professor Valerie Hudson in an interview.
Under WRI sponsorship, Hudson amassed a qualitative global database on women's health. Scholars tap BYU's WomanStats Project to gauge the status of women around the world. Hudson's own work demonstrates a compelling link between a society's ability to safeguard women's interests and its relative peacefulness.
"WomanStats was birthed through the
An outside scholar called WRI's elimination "unfortunate," particularly in light of BYU's troubled history with women's studies. In the mid 1990s, a popular women's conference was launched and folded amid much controversy, noted Christine Talbot, a scholar of Mormon history who coordinates University of Northern Colorado's women's studies program.
"A lot of people saw the institute as an effort to revamp women's studies on that campus," said Talbot, who taught women's studies at the University of Utah. "It's the only place in the United States that is a focal point for Mormon women's history."
The decision to restructure BYU women's studies came after a year-long review by a five-member interdisciplinary faculty committee, David Magleby, dean of the College of Family, Home and Social Sciences, wrote in an e-mail to faculty last week.
The institute will be folded in January and its director, Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill, will be assigned to BYU's psychology department. Meanwhile, BYU's women's studies minor will be moved to the sociology department under the direction of department chairwoman Renata Forste.
Since the institute's founding, BYU has established the Women's Resource Center and Faculty Women's Association. Magleby's e-mail suggest these bodies re-affirm BYU's commitment to women's issues.
But Hudson, whom the committee did not consult, noted that these campus centers have no role in supporting research.
Officials praised Ballif-Spanvill's leadership and stressed the moves were not made to cut costs.
"The reorganization is in line with university goals to streamline and strengthen programs wherever possible," Jenkins said. "No one has lost their jobs."
The university will establish a grant program named in honor of Emmeline B. Wells, a Utah pioneer and suffragist credited with building bridges of understanding between Mormons and non-Mormons. The program will award grants of up to $25,000 to faculty to support research focusing on women.
