Another BYU snafu: Women’s Research Institute gets “streamlined”

A few days ago, BYU posted a below-the-radar “press release” on its website, announcing the dissolution of the Women’s Research Institute. (The press, however, seems to have not been aware of the announcement until alerted by bloggers.) As various unnamed WRI faculty affiliates wrote at SquareTwo,

The Institute was the seed-bed for several important new institutions at BYU.  For example, Women’s Services and Resources, specifically tasked with providing important gender-related information to female students, was developed from the Women’s Research Institute in 1992.  Women’s Conference was overseen by the Women’s Research Institute from 1984 to 1989, when oversight was transferred to the Relief Society of the Church and the President’s Office of BYU.  The WRI continued to edit collections of speeches from the conference, resulting in edited volumes from 1989-1994.  “During the Institute’s 1993 annual retreat, it was proposed that the Faculty Women’s Association be organized to build upon the Institute’s accomplishments and expand support for female faculty.”  . . .

Within the period 2006-2008, over 132 publications resulted from faculty research projects funded by the Women’s Research Institute.  In addition, the WRI has been a member of the National Council for Research on Women since 2003. . . .

The elimination of the WRI was expressed as a “streamlining and strengthening” of BYU programs in the area of women’s studies.  While the Women’s Studies Minor is to be housed in the Sociology Department (i.e., an interdisciplinary major housed in a disciplinary department), there will no longer be coordinated facilitation at BYU of research and scholarly dialogue concerning women, apart from one university-wide faculty research award and the transfer from the WRI of a small amount of research money for research on women to be given out by the university’s Office of Research and Creative Activities. Within the last twenty years of record-keeping, no other university in the country has eliminated its center of research concerning women.  We hope the anomaly of this move on the part of BYU will not be misinterpreted by those who erroneously believe that the LDS Church is not a friend to women and does not consider women's issues to be important.  Only time will tell if the envisioned strengthening will in fact take place at BYU. (Emphasis added)

Obviously, this is an unfortunate decision. While I doubt that BYU will reconsider, it’s important that BYU students, BYU alumni, and other interested persons speak out. To get involved, please join our facebook group. You may also write to BYU’s Daily Universe here.

Here are some other resources:

• Demise of the BYU Women’s Research Institute, by Ariel (AHLDuke’s wife) at Weightier Matters
• Shutting Down BYU’s Women’s Research Institute, by Elisa, guest-posting at FMH
• Save the Women’s Research Institute!, by mraynes, at Exponent II
• BYU to Fold its Women’s Research Institute, Salt Lake Tribune
• BYU Cuts Women’s Research Institute, Deseret News.
• Women’s Research Institute to be Dissolved, Daily Universe