EXHIBITS
The Women's Movement in Utah: Women In Education
Array
(
[0] => HIST 3770 Spring 2018
[1] => no-show
[2] => student exhibit
)
The Women's Movement In Education
Characteristic of Utah’s conservative brand of the Women’s Movement, activists experienced pushback and resistance as they worked to alter the role of women in education. Women made progress when they worked in conjunction with the structures already in place in the world of education.[1] Throughout the 1970s, primary, secondary, and post-secondary schools in Utah implemented changes that enabled women to be more involved in both teaching and learning. In Cache Valley, the academic wing of the Women's Movement concentrated on Utah State University and schools in Cache County School District.
Utah State University
Utah State University underwent many changes throughout the 1970s as Cache Valley women sought equality in education. In 1972, female undergraduates lobbied for courses on women and gender, and the course titled “Evolution of the Female Personality” was first taught at Utah State University by Alison Comish Thorne that spring. However, it wasn’t until 1975 that it became a 3-credit course with an established classroom and permanent instructor.
The Committee on the Status of Women was created in 1972 as well; this group oversaw the recruitment and treatment of women faculty. This committee avoided being labeled a “women’s lib” group in order to mitigate any resistance from conservative currents on campus.[2] In 1973, the committee drafted and distributed a handout addressing sexual discrimination, an issue college campuses still struggle with today.
The women’s restroom on the second floor of the student center was turned into the Women’s Center in 1973. The Center advocated for all women on campus, and specifically aided “nontraditional” students who were returning to school after raising children. Alison Comish Thorne, a home economics professor and a leader of the Women’s Movement at USU, said that the Women’s Center “could not have happened without the support of women students and faculty, and of faculty wives. The male administration needed convincing, and their wives convinced them, as did enrollment trends and needs of women. Federal requirements of affirmative action and Title IX were outside influences.”[3]
Throughout the decade, the university hosted speakers and events sympathetic to the Women’s Movement, such as Hands Across the Valley, Utah's League of Women Voters, and research studies on the effects of single-parent homes on children at the USU Children Development Lab.[4] By the end of the 1970s, students and faculty learned and worked with an increased awareness of the condition of women on campus.
Cache County School District
