The ETSU upper administration is considering evicting Women’s Studies from its current office space to move in a larger department that has recently lost its accreditation and has undergone a split, making it necessary for one part of the split department to find new office space on campus.

Displacing Women’s Studies would be a detriment to our campus community, would reflect poorly on our university’s mission to be the best university in the nation (our mission), and would undermine our university’s commitment to diversity.

The administration has identified a couple of locations that they said Women’s Studies could be moved to. One is in the back of the College Campus Building; the other is in its basement. As part of our diversity initiative on campus, Women’s Studies should be located in a highly visible area. That space/visibility/locatedness communicates everything in terms of social, and in this case, academic recognition. Women's Studies is no longer a marginalized field in academics. It is part of the core that progressive and committed faculty and students everywhere look for in terms of the place and experience of women on campus. ETSU will be stepping back 20 to 30 years or more by relegating Women's Studies to a lesser place in its academic programming. Our campus should be moving in exactly the opposite direction if it hopes to recruit and retain highest quality students and faculty, moving Women's Studies to a place of much greater visibility and support. To do otherwise is simply caving in to the bullying tactics of larger departments who can push around smaller departments and to attacks on the status of women, including our own female students and faculty.

Women’s Studies is safe and sacred space for students. Our majors and minors have made this space their own and call it their “home away from home.” They use this space to do their homework, to hang out, to check in, to congregate, to organize, to be advised, to advise others, to seek support and mentoring, and to eat cupcakes. When this was mentioned to the Dean, he said that in an economic downturn such as the one we are currently in, we cannot afford such a luxurious use of space. (He was making an argument for the department taking up our space because they are bigger and have more money, faculty, and students.) I replied that in an economic downturn such as the one we are currently in, we cannot afford not to use our space to engage and connect with our students. Studies are clear; engagement is the path to retention. If we want to retain our students, we will do this through making meaningful connections with them. We cannot afford not to use our space as a location for the engagement, growth, and development of our students. Displacing Women’s Studies would have a serious effect on our students and sends the message that our university does not protect its safe spaces for women. Additionally, Women’s Studies has been designated a Safe Zone for LGBTQIA students. Hiding our designated Safe Zones in the backs or basements of buildings sends the wrong message.

Lastly, because our WMST 2010: Introduction to Women’s Studies course meets both General Education and Writing Intensive university requirements, we potentially serve every student on campus, not just our own growing numbers of majors and minors. Last academic year, in just this one course, we served 472 students from across the total university. This number is up from 376 in the year before. Women’s Studies continues to increase student enrollment. Displacing us would be a real detriment to our program and a move backwards.

Being evicted from our office space by a larger department rings of a campus politics that borders on school-yard bullying. We would like to enlist your support for Women’s Studies and, in effect, all women students, staff, and faculty on campus by supporting our efforts to save our office space in 211 Campus Center Building.