Yale WGSS from 2009-2019

Composed by Inderpal Grewal

In the fall of 2009, the WGSS Program faculty had only two jointly appointed faculty members, along with instructional faculty, Melanie Boyd, Maria Trumpler, Geetanjali Chanda and Graeme Reid. Of the two tenured faculty, Laura Wexler was a joint appointment with American Studies, and Mariane LaFrance was jointly appointed with Psychology. The Program also included affiliated faculty, some of whom were founders of the Program and who served on the WGSS Council.

Inderpal Grewal arrived in 2009, after having chaired a program review that was instigated by the then chair, Serene Jones, with Laura Wexler. It was clear to them that WGSS could not continue as it was with just almost no full, permanent and tenured and tenure-track faculty, given that similar programs around the US (and the world) were thriving in R1 universities. This was not just a problem with Yale, but the Ivies (Cornell was an exception) overall were much behind other R1 universities in having robust WGSS programs. A program review suggested more full-time appointments in WGSS to keep up with the field, and to add both an international/transnational approach and sexuality studies expertise.

When Grewal arrived in 2009, she was given to understand that Yale was ready to build WGSS, but Yale was in a period of retrenchment because of the 2008 economic crisis. It became clear that there was hesitation to expand any program. To make matters worse, Inderpal discovered that the only units that would be authorized to do searches were those which had lost faculty and were down in their numbers. This policy meant that WGSS, which had two .5 faculty in the books and nothing else, could not get approval if all that Yale was allowing was replacement faculty upon retirements or departures. To compound the problem, there were no endowments or funds associated with WGSS, though LGBTS had such funds and they were able to offer visiting lecturers positions, student research awards, and lecture series.

Sally Promey, faculty in the Divinity School, had stepped in as chair upon Serene Joses’ departure. She worked on the appointment of Grewal and then was able to get authorization for one junior position in sexuality studies, which was only possible with LGBTS giving up its two visiting lecturer positions. With one more position, WGSS would move to 3.0 tenure-line and tenured faculty positions–which was more than it had ever been in its history. That sexuality search ended with the appointment of Joe Fischel as Assistant Professor, and with better integration of LGBTS with WGSS. WGSS became partners with the LGBTS Committee to host the Brudner Award and to administer grants and fellowships in LGBTS.

WGSS teaching faculty remained outstanding as Maria Trumpler, Melanie Boyd, Graeme Reid, and Geeta Chanda all taught courses that were important and popular among students. WGSS also cross-listed courses across Humanities and Social Sciences. Over the next few years, Maria and Melanie would have to reduce their teaching to take on other responsibilities. Melanie Boyd would move to Student Affairs and Maria Trumpler would become the inaugural director for Yale’s Office of LGBTQ Resources (now the Yale LGBTQ Center).

In 2010, Inderpal Grewal became chair and she would end up chairing the Program for 6 years. Her goal was to change the Program into one that would not just be a teaching program but one that could contribute to research in the university as an interdisciplinary field with a decades-long history. That meant trying to put WGSS on the map at Yale in all sorts of ways: through joint conferences and co-sponsoring talks, inviting other faculty to become 0% positions in WGSS, and by connecting or partnering with people across the university (including with social sciences), seeking grants and participating in events across the university. Grewal’s affiliation with the MacMillan Center helped in expanding the affiliate faculty to social scientists doing feminist work, adding to the humanities faculty who were already allies of the program. WGSS also reached out to the professional schools to seek connections with the Schools of Nursing, Law, and Public Health.  WGSS also began to create a WGSS Qualification, in addition to the existing Graduate Certificate, for graduate work, with a possible hope for a PhD in the future. The Qualification was the first grad program that was approved, although the Yale Graduate School would not allow it to be called a Certificate. WGSS also drafted a Five-Year Plan to help the administration (the new provost was Benjamin Polak from Economics and the Management School)  become cognizant of its progress and goals, including listing the areas of expertise that would be important for a thriving Program. On the undergraduate curriculum side, the plan called for greater integration of WGSS and LGBTQ courses and a better pathway for the major.

Inderpal was told by the then Provost that the only way to get additional faculty was to seek out other departments and programs to see if they might be willing to offer a .5 of their own to enable a joint hire. The problem was that Inderpal was the only WGSS faculty researching in non-Euro-American studies and that did not translate into a comprehensive transnational expertise, though Yale was going “global” with projects in Singapore (the new joint liberal arts school with National University of Singapore) and recruiting students from Africa, Latin America, and Asia.

WGSS began a yearly lecture series, making visible the important work done in the field. Council members pitched in to help and over the years. They would give of their time and knowledge to be on search committees and also work as DUS and DGS. WGSS began a twice-yearly newsletter to share faculty and student accomplishments with affiliate faculty, students, and alumni; Geeta Chanda was its first editor, with the help of Craig Canfield, then program manager. WGSS also supported its affiliated faculty with presenting their work in conferences and workshops. Working with the African Studies program in the MacMillan Center, WGSS hosted several scholars (Lyn Ossome, Zakia Salime, Zethu Matebene) as visiting faculty and the first conference held at Yale on Gender in Africa. These efforts were intended to both add another faculty appointment in non-western studies and to rectify the problem that there was not one African feminist scholar among the tenured and tenure-line Yale faculty. The visiting program also allowed WGSS to bring Roxanne Gay and Susan Stryker to teach in the program.

WGSS took on many projects in partnership with faculty across the university. Partnering with History of Science, Inderpal Grewal and Joanna Radin nominated and were able to bring to Yale Donna Haraway, the distinguished scholar of feminism and science, to Yale as recipient of the Wilbur Cross Medal. WGSS joined with American Studies and African American Studies to support the creation of the Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity and Transnational Migration. Inderpal Grewal collaborated with American Studies faculty member Zareena Grewal to apply for a Luce Foundation grant for research on Gender and Religion and to host conferences and workshops on the topic. WGSS, with Laura Wexler and Inderpal Grewal taking the lead, worked with the Beinecke and History of Art faculty member Kishwar Rizvi to create a workshop series on colonial photography. Collaborating with Yale Law, Grewal worked to award the Gruber Distinguished Lecture in Human Rights to the renowned Pakistani feminist, Asma Jahangir, and to host a workshop with her for WGSS students.

Inderpal Grewal also reached out to all sister Ivies to create a yearly meeting of all WGSS faculty to enable conversation and strategy sessions. Yale faculty met with counterparts at Princeton, Harvard, Yale, and Columbia over the years, and these were sessions that offered connections and helped to sustain programs.

This project of placing WGSS on the research map of Yale could not have been accomplished without the help of staff. Craig Canfield, who took over from John-Albert Moseley in 2012, was stellar in helping carry out all these different projects, though he left WGSS after a couple of years. However, new staff members soon joined the Program. We were also able to get more funding to support students: first the Shana Alexander Fellowship for undergraduate research, given by Lisa Alter in honor of the pioneering journalist, Shana Alexander, began in 2010 and later the Ambereen Toubassy fund for graduate research.

WGSS also began the process of updating the curriculum with the arrival of more tenured and tenure-line faculty and new affiliates, and with the goal of creating a more current, cohesive, and easily navigable major. Joe Fischel and Geeta Chanda took the lead in the project beginning with a review of WGSS programs across several R1 universities. The result was better integration of WGSS and LGBTQ studies and a clearer pathway for the major, while keeping the senior essay tradition intact.

Joe Fischel also began the task of drafting what a joint PhD program with a few other Yale departments might look like. In this WGSS was building on the popularity of the Graduate Qualification, which was attracting graduate students from other departments for the opportunity offered by the Qualification. In addition, WGSS faculty were able to argue that the number of inquiries from prospective students internationally and nationally were robust enough that a joint PhD would be well received. A graduate program would also bring in students to get training in WGSS as a field well established in interdisciplinary training over three decades and more.

These efforts did result in one more search promised in transnational studies that took place in 2012-13. Since the search had so many excellent candidates, WGSS was able to convince the Deans and Provost to allow two positions, resulting in the appointments of Evren Savcı and Eda Pepi as Assistant Professors. WGSS now had 4 faculty fully appointed in WGSS, with one half appointment with American Studies. Marianne LaFrance moved her .5 line to Psychology and then retired. Joe Fischel gained tenure—the first to become tenured from within the Program.

As the Program grew in junior faculty, there was a need for more senior faculty appointments, especially for the purpose of chairing the program since Inderpal had done it for six years. Kathryn Lofton had stepped in for a year (2014-2015) while Inderpal was on leave and Margaret Homans chaired in 2015-2016. Inderpal returned to chair for two more years. In seeking senior positions, WGSS identified three senior scholars—Rod Ferguson, Regina Kunzel, and Dara Strolovitch—as faculty who would be able to lead the program in the future. Inderpal began the process in 2018 of approaching the Deans and Provost to get approval for the appointments. Margaret Homans, one of the founders of the Program and who had chaired the Program when it first began, took over the search process when Inderpal stepped down. As Kathryn Lofton became Dean of Humanities, there was new energy and support for WGSS, and Margaret was able to undertake the task of completing the recruiting of Ferguson and Strolovitch as fully within WGSS, while Kunzel came with a joint appointment with History. At the same time, ER&M sought out WGSS for a joint position as well, resulting in the hiring of Kalindi Vora and Fatima El-Tayeb. By the end of 2019, as Margaret was able to make these appointments, the program would expand with both junior and senior faculty, although at the end of that decade Grewal left the campus to take Emerita status.