The study of women

Approval to introduce an interdisciplinary course on Women in Society will be sought from the Curriculum Committee of the University Grants Committee by Victoria University.

This decision, taken at the University's Council meeting last Monday, means that Victoria University could be, in 1978, the first New Zealand university to offer an integrated programme of women's studies.

Planned for students in their second year of study, the new course will concentrate on the status of women in contemporary society.

Proposals for the course were first considered by a group of women academics at Victoria University in mid-1973, and were developed in a series of meetings arranged for men and women academics interested in teaching such courses.

Responsibility for coordinating the course will be assumed by Ms P. Bunkle, a lecturer in the university's History Department and a range of university teachers in the Faculties of Arts and Languages and Literature will be involved in providing lectures.

The lecture course will cover the present status of women, an historical viewpoint of the origins of the status of modern women, and the reactions of feminists to the changing status of women.

Lindsay G. Wright Information Officer