Throughout the conference, participants shared their experiences with respect to attempting to bridge the disciplinary divides at their institutions. They raised difficult questions about making a gender perspective central to the curriculum across disciplines that often do not share common conceptual or theoretical frameworks. They also discussed issues of representation and expertise, the problems with ethnocentric scholarship, resistance to institutionalizing curricular change within departments and administrations, the difficulties of garnering funding resources, and their desire to reach broader audiences.

The weekend's activities began Friday evening, October 3, with a reception hosted by the Ford Foundation. This reception was intended in part to bring the WSAIS project to the attention of a wider audience, in addition to creating an opportunity for WSAIS participants, along with researchers, policymakers, and other leaders in international women's issues, to share ideas and experiences. The president of each participating WSAIS institution was invited in order to enhance the visibility of the project and participating departments and programs within their own institutions, and a press release was sent to the press office of every participating campus, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and all major international news media prior to the event. Janice Petrovich, Deputy Director of the Ford Foundation's Education, Media, Arts & Culture Program, and Linda Basch, Executive Director of NCRW, welcomed participants to the following two days of discussion and analysis.

At the opening plenary on Saturday entitled "Integrating a Gender Perspective into Diverse Institutional Contexts," speakers from diverse arenas, including the United Nations and Nongovernmental Organizations, presented an overview of nonacademic institutional attention to gender issues. Panelists included Achola Pala Okeyo (UNIFEM) and Anita Nayar (Women's Environment and Development Organization). Both stressed the need to develop ways to bring activists and researchers closer together in order that women in various contexts are empowered to advocate for themselves. During the discussion that followed, the group agreed that academics might influence policy and fellow faculty more directly by distilling their research findings into concise summaries targeted to particular policy sectors.

During the first two of the three work sessions that followed, panelists focused on some of the conceptual and theoretical challenges that have emerged in the implementation of the projects, as well as the ramifications of these on pedagogical strategies. They discussed conflicts that arise among faculty and researchers working on the WSAIS project from different disciplinary frameworks, as well as differences of situated knowledges and experiences--of both faculty and students; the hazards of teaching appreciation without apology and criticism without ethnocentrism; and the difficulty of finding ways to step beyond areas of expertise to teach international, global, or gender issues. One participant argued that in rethinking the basis of what constitutes knowledge, and how knowledge is generated, we change the way in which research is being done. She felt that in order to break down boundaries and develop partnerships at a more genuine level--between faculty in different disciplines, between activists and academics, between faculty and students--it will be necessary to structure research in a way that doesn't result in an "us vs. them" situation. Another participant suggested that this could be accomplished by abandoning the search for a common language and instead finding a common space where different languages can meet.

Saturday's third session focused on ways to catalyze curricular change on a large and lasting scale, rather than simply effecting changes within a few courses. Participants addressed the ways in which curricula can be restructured within the context of various institutional factors, as well as how institutional arrangements themselves could be rethought and changed. In doing so, they also discussed the difficulties associated with "institutional idiosyncrasies," e.g., a general lack of sustained funding and support; a reluctance among some junior faculty to take curriculum risks due to the pressures involved in the tenure process; and the current position of many interdisciplinary programs that are relegated to asking for favors from beleaguered professors in other departments.

Throughout the meeting, participants articulated various strategies for overcoming the challenges they have faced during the implementation of their individual WSAIS projects. Some of these include: the use of case studies and concepts like "patriarchy" to enter discussions of gender relations cross-culturally rather than talking about a common feminist experience; reliance on teaching assistant's to supply students with newer readings and newer ideas in the belief that they are the ones who will ultimately change the academy; maximization of collaborative exchange with visiting scholars; team-teaching; experiential learning and other alternative pedagogical methods; and the development of greater connections between researchers and the wider community--an issue that funding agencies are increasingly raising.

Deborah Thomas, NCRW's Coordinator for International Projects, drafted a report summarizing the workshop activities that was sent to participants in April.