Madam, - The planned closure of the Women's Studies Centre in NUIG has been deplored by the faculty across the universities (Letters, March 5th). Universities are still hierarchically and numerically male-dominated institutions. Only 10 per cent of those at professorial level are women. Yet more than half of the students at undergraduate and post-graduate level are women.
There are no national data available on the proportion of women in senior management positions in the universities but it is safe to say that it is small. Decisions about expenditure, priorities and strategic plans are overwhelmingly taken by men.
In this context, a centre which valorises and validates an interdisciplinary feminist focus on women is particularly valuable. By its presence and activities it widens the space within which teaching and research on gender can be located, and creates a basis for critical reflection on the male-dominated nature of institutions, including the universities themselves. Such was one part of the value of the centre for women's studies in NUI Galway. As noted by Joanna McMinn of the National Women's Council of Ireland (February 26th) it also had an extensive role in bridging the gap between academia and local groups and communities.
In a society where we have begun to value diversity, it is very sobering indeed to find that the most common basis of diversity (i.e. gender) is apparently not valued by an institution of higher education.
We are all diminished by such decisions. - Yours, etc,
Prof PAT O'CONNOR, Dean, College of Humanities and Professor of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Limerick.