RUS Letter Will Ask Faculty For More Courses on Women

The Radcliffe Union of Students will ask the Faculty in the near future to offer a wider variety of courses in women's studies and to include more material on women in other courses, an RUS spokesman said yesterday.

Harvard offers fewer courses on women than most other Ivy League schools, Margaret Hunt '76, vice president of RUS and chairman of the Union's Committee on Women's Studies, said yesterday.

Hunt said the University of Pennsylvania offers 20 courses that mention women in the title and Princeton offers at least ten, while Harvard offers only five such courses.

Judith Walzer, director of the Office for Women's Education, which is now studying courses on women at other universities, said yesterday, "There are a lot of interesting things going on, and we really feel like they're passing us by."

Walzer said her office will give full support to the RUS recommendation, which Hunt said will be submitted to the Faculty Standing Committee on Women in the next few weeks.

The RUS will probably not ask the Faculty to create a separate department on women's studies, Hunt said, although she said the student group will suggest that enough departmental courses on women be offered to allow students to design a special studies program.

"These courses will not come into being unless there is pressure from students. The Faculty won't do it on their own," Hunt added.

Ursula Goodenough, assistant professor of Biology and chairman of the standing committee, was unavailable last night for comment.

Barbara M. Solomon, senior lecturer on History and Literature, who has taught Soc Sci 145b, "Women and the American Experience," for the last four years, said yesterday she feels both men and women are interested in women's studies.

Judith A. Kates, assistant professor of Comparative Literature, who teaches Comp Lit 108, "Literature by Women," said yesterday she received about 50 applications this fall for her course, which requires a reading knowledge of French.

Walzer said she believes some of the younger faculty members would be willing to teach courses on women or to incorporate more material on women into general courses, if they were sure there was interest in the subject.

Comp Lit 108 deals with French, English, and American fiction and poetry with a historical perspective. The course treats women authors such as Marguerite de Navarre, Jane Austen, George Eliot, Colette, Sylvia Plath, and Lillian Hellman.

Soc Sci 145b explores the impact of the American environment on women's expectations in the twentieth century.