Reclaiming the feminist agenda on campus.(MOVEABLE TYPE)

Progress on the feminist agenda on campus has been rocky at best since Judith Glazer-Raymo published Shattering the Myths: Women in Academe in 1999. While women gained individual successes, including a few high-profile presidencies, the academic structures that impede women remain firmly in place.

Political, economic and social trends threaten to reverse some progress, with federal court decisions and state-level voter initiatives dismantling affirmative action. Cost-cutting measures further stall women's interests.

Hoping to generate a more inclusive agenda for the new century, Glazer-Raymo invited leading feminist scholars to address a range of issues in higher education. Their essays, in some cases with junior colleagues, form the chapters of Unfinished Agendas: New and Continuing Gender Challenges in Higher Education (Johns Hopkins University Press 2008, ed. by Judith Glazer-Raymo).

Some chapters are reflective, while others draw on interviews or quantitative studies. Most include suggestions to improve academia for women.

Academic capitalism

U.S. political culture has moved toward privatization as both a means and an end. The state uses public resources to enhance the private sector. Knowledge, once considered a public good, is now evaluated in relation to the market. Faculty are rated by the grants or royalties they bring in; students, by their ability to pay high tuition. While some women thrive in this entrepreneurial trend, more do not.

Economic models of production underlie "productivity" as a measure of scholarly value. Ana M. Martinez Aleman suggests that the focus on production ignores the relational aspect of undergraduate teaching, a "reproductive" process that's harder to measure.