Gender Studies Program Development

Donor: Central European University, Special and Extension Programs; Open Society Institute, Higher Education Support Program

Partners: Gender Studies Department CEU, European Humanitarian University (EHU)

Center for Social Sciences is participating as one of the major partners in the Gender Studies Program Development project, which is implemented by Special and Extension Programs Department of the Central European University, funded by Higher Education Support Program, Open Society Institute. This is a three-year project designed to support the development of a select group of Gender Studies programmes. The overall goal of the project is to build MA programs in Gender Studies, focusing on the promotion of Faculty and curriculum development at particular sites in the target region. The aim is to enhance academic and teaching qualifications of the programs’ faculty as well as to help improve the programs’ curriculum at the level of structure, content and resources. Center for Social Sciences is involved in the project as it has developed, introduced and has been is administering the Gender Studies interdisciplinary Master’s program, since 2005. The program belongs to the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Tbilisi State University but development of its curriculum recourses and administration of the study process is carried out by the Center for Social Sciences in cooperation with the foreign supervisors and partner universities.

CSS Faculty of Gender Studies participated in workshop held at CEU in February 2008. Joint memorandum of understanding was signed by the Center for Social Sciences, TSU, Center for Gender Studies, European Humanities University, Gender Studies Department, Central European University and Special and Extensions Programs, CEU. The purpose of the memorandum was to continue the development of the partners’ Masters’ programs in Gender Studies through mutual academic and professional support. Following areas of collaboration were defined: Curriculum and course development; Faculty development and Joint advising of students. Joint activities of cooperation between partner institutions were also identified covering following fields: faculty exchanges, jointly taught courses, visiting lecturing, specifically targeted workshops, course teams for new or existing courses, modular doctoral program for junior faculty, exchange of resources, student workshops during exchange visits, quality assurance and control as well as other related activities that contribute to the core areas above. Project also will partially touch following areas: development of PhD programs, PhD student initiatives, joint research, joint publications and fund – raising issues.

Within the framework Gender Studies Program Development project in May 2 – 9, CSS hosted the workshop on developing post-graduate programs in Gender at Tbilisi State University. The first two days were dedicated to presentations of courses taught by faculty from both CSS and EHU Gender studies programs. Overall structure of curriculum and the outline, as well as the syllaby for each course were discussed by workshop participants. Faculty of CEU Gender studies department provided feedback on how the curricula and the courses could be improved. In the third day Students and Faculty Symposium took place. topics and research of the MA thesis were presented by CSS students and the research interests and activities were outlined by the faculty from CSS, EHU and CEU. Final session of the workshop program addressed quality assurance issues faced by each university with a special focus on internal and external evaluation of degree programs. Participants also discussed the plans of following year, how Gender programs could be developed with the support of Gender Studies Department of Central European University. The mentoring by distance on syllabi design will be conducted and the results of this process will be addressed on following workshop. Next meeting of the Faculty of partner universities is planned to be held in November 2008 at CEU.