[233]GRANTS AVAILABLE TO INFUSE CURRICULUM WITH WOMEN’S ISSUES

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Dec. 11, 2008EDITORIAL CONTACT: Gina Logue, 615-898-5081

GRANTS AVAILABLE TO INFUSE CURRICULUM WITH WOMEN’S ISSUES
MTSU President’s Commission on the Status of Women to Select Three Proposals

(MURFREESBORO) – The President’s Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW) is accepting applications from MTSU faculty for three grants of $1,800 each to be awarded in summer 2009 for integrating women’s issues into the curriculum. The grants are for use by tenured or tenure-track professors for the revision of a course, revision of a general education course for the Study Abroad program, the creation of a new course, the re-conceptualization of a current minor, or the creation of a new minor.
A proposal for a Curriculum Integration Grant should include a completed grant application form; a brief description of the project; a statement of goals and objectives; a timeline for completion and implementation of the project; a tentative bibliography, including materials on the theories and methods of curriculum integration; and a curriculum vitae.
The 2008 grants were awarded to Dr. Felicia Miyakawa, assistant professor of music, Dr. Bill Levine, associate professor of English, and Dr. Kari Neely, assistant professor of foreign languages
Miyakawa used her funding to create “Women in Music,” a course that covered “not only women composers in the Western tradition, but also women performers, women patrons and women as objects and symbols in the marketing and consumption of music,” states the syllabus. Students are challenged to “discuss cultural constructions of gender and the ramifications these constructions hold for musical experiences” and “articulate connections between diverse forms of feminism and their manifestations in music,” among other course objectives.
The premise of Levine’s course, “Women Writers of the Restoration and British Eighteenth Century, is that women writers’ contributions on modern principles such as human rights, imperialism, empirical knowledge, consensual marriage and contractual government have gone unacknowledged over time and should be examined. The course focuses on how “selected Restoration and 18th century women writers’ lives and works participated in the ongoing struggle for inclusion and legitimacy within a male-dominated public sphere,” according to the syllabus.

Neely’s course, “Women of the Middle East: Representations and Perceptions,” takes a look at “images of Middle Eastern women and their reception in the Middle East and the West,” states the syllabus. “Through an exploration of notable women such as Cleopatra, Mary (mother of Jesus), and the Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum, we address how political and social issues have been and are played out upon women.”
Proposals will be reviewed by the Academic Affairs Subcommittee of the PCSW. The deadline for faculty to submit grant applications is Jan. 30, 2009. Details are available at http://www.mtsu.edu/~pcsw/grants.htm. For further information, contact Dr. Samantha Cantrell in the Office of Research Services at 615-494-8751 or scantrel@mtsu.edu.


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