In honor of the women’s studies

program’s 35th anniversary at Iowa State, two former directors

along with a lecturer in Women’s Studies are trying to create an

historical timeline featuring the highlights of the program and

progress in women’s rights.

Linda Galyon, second director of the

program, Kathleen Hickok, former director and professor in English,

and Yalem Teshome, adjunct assistant professor in anthropology, met

at the Stomping Grounds to discuss the progress the program has

made.

Galyon said she remembers what the

university was like when she arrived in 1960.

“Up until the 1960s women did not

teach at universities … they taught in community colleges,”

Galyon said. “I think women’s studies formed as a response to

improve that.”

Galyon said she worked at the

University from 1960 to 1964, and then studied in Iowa City with

her husband, a philosophy professor, for a year.

She returned to Iowa State in 1965

as an instructor in English.

“Many people who did not have Ph.D.s

were encouraged to get the degree or move on,” Galyon

said.

Galyon said she believed she was

picked to chair the program simply because she was female and

tenured. When she arrived at the university, veterinary medicine

was the only college that didn’t accept many women because they did

not believe women were strong enough to handle horses and larger

animals.

It was not until March 21, 1975,

that there was a proposal for a women’s studies program at Iowa

State, which was created by the University Committee on

Women.

The proposal begins, “In the past

few years a number of interdisciplinary curricula, such as Indian

studies, Asian studies and black studies, have become a reality on

many university campuses. These curricula reflect an

acknowledgement by the universities that a traditional college

education has been selective, ignoring consideration from many

people and their contributions.”

The proposal suggests that women’s

studies programs had been created around the world because women

and men have demanded to learn more about what women are like, the

contributions women have made, how a feminist perspective might

solve some of the problems facing humanity, and how students want

to be better prepared to take an active role in changing the status

of women in our society.

The program started off with one

course, and Galyon said the teaching in that course was not

feminist.

A man taught the course, and he

brought in women in power to tell students their

stories.

Galyon said for a while it was

necessary to remind other departments the program

existed.

The program changed throughout the

‘70s.

She said one of the changes came

through the addition of the journalism and political science

departments, which brought the opportunity to teach how women were

portrayed in the media and politics.

In 1980 Galyon left her position as

chair, and Kathy Hickok took the position in 1984.

Hickok said it was one of three jobs

in the whole country that was advertised concerning women’s studies

and English that year.

It took her six years to get tenured

through the English department after she arrived.

“You cannot get tenured at [the

women’s studies] program. They’ve never been willing to change

that, or to make the program a department,” Hickok said.

She thinks part of the reasoning for

that is from the history of the institution.

“It was a defensive and anxious

response to the feminist movement. They didn’t want to give us too

much power to prevent a political uprising … It was supposed to

be an educational facility,” Hickok said. Both women agreed that a

large reason the program was expanded was because of the support of

then-President Robert Parks.

They said he was the first real

humanist president at Iowa State, and he was interested in the

feminist movement.

Galyon said when she returned as

chair of the program in the ‘90s, the program had a major, and

Provost Elizabeth Hoffman, who was serving as dean of liberal arts

and sciences, helped her immensely.

“I never asked her for something she

didn’t give me,” Galyon said.

Hickok said the program was always

thinking as a department.

“We started thinking if we were a

department, what would we do? It turns out it wasn’t a bad

thing.”

Galyon said she still has concerns

about getting faculty tenured and protection for probationary

periods.

The meeting, however, ended on a

positive note.

Referring to the creators of the

proposal for the program, Hickok said, “We have fulfilled

everything these people could have imagined.”