A group of 200 international academics has questioned NUI, Galway's decision to restructure its women's studies centre.
A letter written by a number of professors of humanities and directors of women's studies in Oxford and Cambridge (Britain), the US, Canada and India has been sent to NUI, Galway (NUIG) president, Dr Iognaid Ó Muircheartaigh and has been published on the internet.
The 200 signatories include Prof Rosi Braidotti, Utrecht University, Holland; Prof Teresa de Lauretis, University of California, Santa Cruz and Prof Mary Hawkesworth, Rutgers University, US; Prof Juliet Mitchell, Cambridge University, Dr Teresa Morgan, Oxford University and Prof Gabriele Griffin, University of York, Britain.
The signatories also include Prof Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Syracuse University; Prof Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Columbia University; Prof Barrie Thorne, University of California, Berkeley and Prof Laura Wexler, Yale University, US.
The letter states that Galway has long been known for its commitment to women's studies and for its successful development of a "diverse, interdisciplinary, rigorous, international vision" of same that transcends "single-unit and narrowly academic concerns" to engage with the larger community and political dimensions of the field.
The university's plan to move women's studies into the political science and sociology department effectively reduces an interdisciplinary field into a single discipline and compromises the centre's former autonomy as a discrete unit, it says.
The dedicated space which the centre occupied off campus was "specifically designed to meet the diverse needs of the centre", and was vital to "creating interdisciplinary exchange", it states.
"To deprive women's studies of its physical locus risks damaging the advances it has made at NUIG, and does not follow the model of best practice internationally. A pair of faculty offices and a borrowed seminar room seem a poor substitute," they state.
NUIG has said that it took the decision to move two academic posts within women's studies to the department of political science and sociology after "15 months of consultation". However, some 46 members of staff from 16 departments and centres, including a dean, assistant dean and seven professors, have queried the manner in which the decision was taken in a petition presented to the university's academic planning and resource committee (APRC).
An external member of the university's review group on women's studies, and a number of staff, have also expressed their opposition to the move in recent letters to The Irish Times.
The department of political science and sociology will offer a new undergraduate course in humanities, social sciences and women's studies, which would attract "greater numbers" to women's studies, according to Prof Kevin Barry, NUIG dean of arts. The two posts for this were advertised last week.