George, regarding your blog on Friday about the Chronicle of Higher Education story that questions black studies programs, I think Shelby Steele’s point could equally be applied to women’s studies programs. As you noted, Steele said the following in the CHE piece:
“It was a bogus concept from the beginning because it was an idea grounded in politics, not in a particular methodology. These programs are dying of their own inertia because they’ve had 30 or 40 years to show us a serious academic program, and they’ve failed.”
To get an update on the status of women’s studies programs in the UNC system, read this study, recently released by the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.