Duke University/University of North Carolina Center for Research on Women records, 1982 - 1992

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Summary

Creator:
Duke University-University of North Carolina Center for Research on Women
Abstract:
The Duke-UNC Center for Research on Women was founded in 1982 as a collaborative endeavor between Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to promote Women's Studies scholarship, research, and curriculum development in the South. The project was originally named the Duke-UNC Women's Studies Research Center, but changed its name to the Duke-UNC Center for Research on Women in 1987. The Center operated with support from the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, smaller grants from local foundations, and institutional backing from Duke and UNC. The records contain correspondence, reports, grant documents, audiotapes, a videotape, and other materials relating to the Center for Research on Women. Major subjects include women's studies curriculum development and research, pay equity, and the relationships between race, class, and gender. Materials range in date from 1982 to 1992. English.
Extent:
30.5 Linear Feet
20,500 Items
Language:
English.
Collection ID:
UA.26.03.0028
University Archives Record Group:
26 -- Interdisciplinary Institutes, Research Centers, and Departments
26 -- Interdisciplinary Institutes, Research Centers, and Departments > 03 -- University-wide Interdisciplinary programs

Background

Scope and content:

The records of the Duke University/University of North Carolina Center for Research on Women contain correspondence, reports, grant documents, audiotapes, a videotape, and other materials relating to the Center for Research on Women. Major subjects include women's studies curriculum development and research, pay equity, and the relationships between race, class, and gender. Materials range in date from 1982 to 1992.

Some of the materials in this collection are not immediately accessible because they require further processing before use. Please contact the University Archives before visiting to use this collection.

Biographical / historical:

The Duke-UNC Center for Research on Women (CROW) was founded in 1982 as a collaborative endeavor between Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to promote Women's Studies scholarship, research, and curriculum development in the South. With support from the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, smaller grants from local foundations, and institutional backing from both Duke and UNC-CH, the Center aimed to create a network among scholars and others in the region who were interested in the new scholarship on women.

The Center's regular activities included a post-doctoral humanist-in-residence fellowship program; the publication of a working papers series: Southern Women: The Intersection of Race Class and Gender, a joint effort with the Memphis State University Center for Research on Women; the publication of a biannual newsletter, Branches, which informed scholars and other interested individuals in the region about conferences, job opportunities, grants and the new scholarship on women; and a wide range of conferences, seminars and community events.

The Center also sponsored statewide and regional conferences on topics such as Pay Equity in North Carolina, Women and Work in the South, and Dialogues Between Black and White Women. Other activities included high school and college curriculum transformation projects, including the Ford funded project, "Incorporating Women of Color Into the Undergraduate Curriculum"; women's studies summer institutes; the 1988 annual Southeastern Women's Studies Association (SEWSA) meeting; and the 1991 Southern Association of Women Historians Conference. From 1985-1990 the Research Center was home to Signs: A Journal of Women in Culture and Society, one of the leading feminist scholarly journals in the country. The central purpose of the Center was to underline the dynamics of gender, race, and class as central themes upon which to base understanding of women's and men's experiences in the South.

The Center's Advisory Board included both Duke and UNC-CH faculty: Dorothy Browne (School of Public Health, UNC); William H. Chafe (History, Duke); Peter Filene (History, UNC); Barbara Harris (Women's Studies/History, UNC); Iris Hill ( Center for Documentary Studies, Duke); Soyini Madison (Speech Communications, UNC); Micheline Malson (Inst. for Public Policy, Duke); Jean O'Barr (Women's Studies, Duke); Margaret O'Connor (English, UNC); Angela O'Rand (Sociology, Duke); Naomi Quinn (Anthropology, Duke); Janice Radway (Literature, Duke); Anne Firor Scott (History, Duke); Jacquelyn Dowd Hall (History, UNC) was the Academic Director and Christina Greene was the Project Director.

The Center's primary projects included:

  • Curriculum Transformation: grants from the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation to work with faculty in the region to create or revise courses in the humanities and social sciences to reflect the new scholarship in women's studies with particular attention to issues of race and class. The Center's first Ford grant in 1982 provided support for the Duke and UNC-CH Women's Studies Program Directors to develop the Introduction to Women's Studies Course on each campus. In 1989-1992, Ford funded the project "Incorporating Women of Color Into the Undergraduate Curriculum" to work with Duke and UNC-CH faculty in four target departments: History, English, Sociology and Anthropology.
  • Research: Ford provided funding in 1982 for 11 faculty and 28 graduate students from Duke and UNC-CH whose work addressed the Center's focus on gender, race and class.
  • Signs: A Journal of Women in Culture and Society: In 1985, the Center won a national competition to become the host (1985-1991) to the leading scholarly feminist journal. Many of the Center's Advisory Board members served as editors for the journal.
  • Rockefeller Humanist-In-Residence Fellowship Program: From 1987-1992, the Center received grants from the Rockefeller Foundation to bring scholars to the Center for a year to work on a book-length manuscript on race, class, and gender. These funds provided support for 11 scholars (mostly junior scholars), all of whom were able to turn dissertations into books or make substantial progress on completing a second book.
  • What Difference Does Difference Make: The Politics of Race, Class, and Gender: Ford and Rockefeller Foundation grants provided funds for a national conference to explore the state of the current scholarship on diversity. The conference, held May 1992, brought together scholars in women's, racial, ethnic and critical legal studies to explore some of the current debates surrounding work on diversity, including the controversies over "political correctness" and multiculturalism, affirmative action and the Columbus quincentennial.
  • Pay Equity in North Carolina: The Center received funding from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation to promote pay equity (based on gender and race equity) in North Carolina through a statewide conference and a pay equity study/project which would serve as a model for similar efforts throughout the state. The Center completed the second phase of the project in the fall of 1992, and Orange County became the first public entity in North Carolina to conduct a pay equity study and make pay adjustments in accordance with its findings.
  • Visiting Lectureship Series: (funded largely through UNC-CH) brought nationally acclaimed scholars including Kate Young, Joyce Ladner, Gerda Lerner, Frances Fox Pivens, Annette Kolodny, Johnella Butler, Alison Jaggar, Rosalind Petchesky, Ethel Klein, Grace Baruch, and bell hooks to both Duke and UNC-CH for several days to conduct small seminars for faculty and graduate students and to deliver public lectures on both campuses.
  • Branches: published quarterly and then biannually, the Center's newsletter reached any scholars and interested persons in the Southeast with information about conferences, jobs, funding opportunities and the new scholarship on women.
  • The Center also sponsored a wide-range of other grant funded projects such as Dialogues Between Black and White Women; Common Differences Between Black and White Women and hosted both the Southeastern Women's Studies Association Conference and the Second Southern Conference in Women's History.

Acquisition information:
The Duke University/University of North Carolina Center for Research on Women Records were received by the University Archives as a transfer in 1996.
Processing information:

Processed by Daniel Daily, completed 1996. Branches newsletters separated and housed with University Publications, 2003.

Encoded by Jill Katte, October 2003

Physical location:
For current information on the location of these materials, please consult University Archives, Duke University.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Contents

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Restrictions:

Researchers must register and agree to copyright and privacy laws before using this collection.

Records, such as search committee files or others pertaining to employment where individuals are identified, are closed for 70 years.

Portions of these materials are restricted by donor request.

Some of the materials in this collection are not immediately accessible because they require further processing before use. Please contact the University Archives before visiting to use this collection.

In off-site storage; 48 hours advance notice is required for use.

Terms of access:

Copyright for Official University records is held by Duke University; all other copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

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Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Duke University/University of North Carolina Center for Research on Women Records, Duke University Archives, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.